Keeping Akhilesh’s youth brigade in check may work in Samajwadi Party’s favour

NEW DELHI: SP Uttar Pradesh president Shivpal Yadav has given a clear message in expelling seven Akhilesh loyalists that there is ‘no second Mulayam’ within the party while achieving the dual purpose of keeping the old guard happy. The three sacked MLCs’ direct accessibility to Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav was a thorn in the flesh of party veterans, who had been in the habit of running the show under the Mulayam Singh government and felt shunted out. Shivpal will depend on SP’s tested caste arithmetic for the Assembly elections, rather than the CM’s development agenda.

Akhilesh gave a new slogan — “kam bolta hai” (works speaks for itself) — to his cadre for these elections. However, Shivpal communicated two slogans to his party workers — ‘ Samajwadi Party zindabad’ and ‘Mulayam Singh zindabad.’ He said, “If you want to shout any other slogan, you are free. But these two would be mandatory,” he is learnt to said in an apparent bid to stop rise of personality cult in SP. Akhilesh has strengthened frontal bodies like Yuvjan Sabha, Lohia Vahini, Youth Brigade and Chhatra Sabha. His preference for youth disrupts the caste arithmetic.

“This is election time and Netaji ( Mulayam Singh Yadav) can’t take the risk of annoying his veterans. That is why he asked Akhilesh to learn the trick of taking along others in the party during his meeting yesterday in Lucknow,” a source in the SP told ET. He said the latent message for Shivpal was that the party chief wants him to ensure active involvement of his old hands.

Shivpal takes charge when the next three months would be crucial for giving final shape to booth committees, considered SP’s main source of strength. “Booth committees have much to do with caste equations. Veterans know who can be accommodated and SP’s show depends on performance of booth committee members,” said a person in the know of SP affairs. Sources close to Shivpal said he has decided on some changes, involving induction of Om Prakash Singh and Ambika Choudhari.