MSY won’t campaign for estranged brother Shivpal

KANPUR: Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Friday dropped broad hints that he may not campaign for his estranged younger brother, Shivpal Yadav, in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Shivpal is in fray from Firozabad under the banner of Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia (PSPL), a political outfit he floated after parting ways with SP.

In political circles, Mulayam’s statement is being seen as an attempt to keep Shivpal at bay during the filing of nomination on April 1 from the Yadav bastion of Mainpuri.


Shivpal, who was earlier scheduled to file his nomination on April 1, postponed his programme to avoid a clash of dates with his elder brother. Recently Shivpal visited Mulayam to seek his blessings.

Mulayam’s statement came at his Friend’s Colony residence in Etawah, following a pointed query by mediapersons if he would campaign for his brother Shivpal and attend his rallies in Ferozabad. “Aree choro, rallyan sab karte hain, kaun jata hai, kaun nahi jata, iski chinta kya karna (Leave it, everybody does rallies, need not to worry on who attends and who doesn’t).”

Sources said Shivpal, who always claimed he has the blessings of his elder brother and had not fielded a candidate against him in Mainpuri, wanted his elder brother to share the stage with him in Ferozabad where he’s contesting against cousin and senior SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav’s son, Akshay. If Mulayam shared stage with Shivpal, it would have caused confusion in SP’s core votebank and would have been detrimental to the SP and a blessing in disguise for PSP-L.

In December 2018, Mulayam participated in a rally by Shivpal Yadav to announce the launch of his new party in Lucknow.