I am still Samajwadi Party president, asserts Mulayam Singh Yadav

NEW DELHI: With Shivpal Yadav and Amar Singh by his side, Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Sunday claimed he was still the party president. “I am the national president of SP, Shivpal Yadav is the state president of SP and Akhilesh Yadav is the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh,” Mulayam said at a brief press conference.

He reiterated that Ram Gopal Yadav stood expelled from the party for six years. “He cannot call a party convention...the convention he called on January 1 was illegal,” Mulayam said. At the said national executive meet of January 1, Akhilesh Yadav was ‘elected’ the party’s national president and Shivpal was removed as the SP state president.

Mulayam’s confidant Amar Singh — blamed by Akhilesh and his supporters for the feud in the family and the party — said the Mulayam camp will approach the Election Commission on Monday where it will question the genuineness of the affidavits filed by Ram Gopal. Ram Gopal had on Saturday submitted 1.5 lakh pages of documents to EC, and affidavits claimed to have been signed by a majority of party MLAs, MLCs and MPs to stake claim on the party symbol, the cycle.

Amar Singh claimed the signatures of MLAs supporting Akhilesh have “no value” as after the model code of conduct came into force on January 4, they practically ceased to be legislators. He said most of the delegates who have signed the affidavit were appointed after January 1. Meanwhile, Ramgopal ruled out any rapprochement between the two factions of UP’s ruling party, saying “4-6 people have misled Netaji (Mulayam) into believing he enjoys the support of 200 MLAs.”