Mulayam, not Akhilesh Yadav is the real boss in UP

LUCKNOW: It might well have been a replay of an intriguing sequence from a durbar of yore, with the power behind the throne suddenly stepping out of the shadows to take direct charge at a time of crisis.

When Mulayam Singh Yadav held meetings with Chief Secretary Jawed Usmani and other officers to handle the Muzaffarnagar violence, the SP chief left little doubt over the real power centre in UP. In the process, he relegated his son and chief minister, Akhilesh, further to the margins.

The chief minister may have 55 departments under him but that scarcely suggests that he doesn’t always have the last word when it comes to the affairs of the party or the government.

As a result, Akhilesh appears to have belied expectations from him that he would mark a new chapter in the party’s history that had been long defined by its patronage of criminals and the attendant lawlessness.

Eighteen months after he got off to a meek start, allocating most of his cabinet ministers the same portfolios that they held during his father’s regime in 2003-2007, he continues to be hemmed in not only by his father but also uncles Ram Gopal and Shivpal, and the party’s most prominent Muslim face Azam Khan.

This, in fact, led rival BSP’s Naseemuddin Siddiqui to famously quip that the state was being run by four-and-a-half chief ministers, with Akhilesh accounting for just a half.

Khan’s absence at the party’s state executive meet in Agra is just the latest instance of embarrassing the chief minister. An old ally of the SP chief and a founding member of the party, Khan has seldom missed an opportunity to take a potshot at Akhilesh. The eighttime MLA has even tendered his resignation twice, contesting decisions taken by the party chief and the CM. On both the occasions, the Yadavs had to make hasty retreat.

Analysts say the CM has failed to assert himself. “Akhilesh has not been able to stamp his authority over the veteran leaders,” said Prof Sudhir Panwar of Lucknow University. “Khan is a constant headache for the government whose Muslim agenda runs through the state. But most of all, Mulayam hasn’t allowed Akhilesh complete freedom,” said Panwar.

Ram Gopal and Shivpal are also seen as power centres. “The state has been divided into personal territories of these uncles,” said Panwar, “Ram Gopal’s writ runs in districts neighbouring Delhi. Shivpal calls the shots in the Yadav belt of Etawah and Mainpuri. He holds half a dozen plum portfolios where nothing moves without his permission.”

Shivpal, who looked after the party organisation for more than a decade and saw himself as the party chief’s successor, was outwitted when Mulayam named his son as the CM.

However, Shivpal adapted quickly to his position as a senior minister in the government.

He also got his son, Ankur, appointed as the chairman of a premier cooperative institution.

Ram Gopal, who proposed Akhilesh’s name as CM, has grown in clout and has also acquired the tag of a power centre. He, too, embarrassed the CM by voicing his support for the suspended IAS officer DS Nagpal.