While Samajwadi Party family feud rages on, BJP smells an opportunity in Uttar Pradesh

ETAWAH: Two large cutouts of Mulayam Singh Yadav, ordered afresh, were installed on the roof of SP office in Netaji’s home borough, Etawah, on Sunday. “Naa Netaji hatenge yahan se, naa hum,” says Sunil Yadav, still the district chief despite being sacked by Ram Gopal Yadav.

About 80 km away, Shivpal Yadav’s photo — after it was removed last week — is missing from the party office in Firozabad. A new district chief Ram Sewak Yadav is already in charge here. Post-Yadav family feud, Ram Gopal had appointed new district chiefs in the key Yadav strongholds of Firozabad, Mainpuri, Kannauj and Etawah. The ‘takeover’ was easier in Firozabad as the local MP is Akshay Yadav, Ram Gopal’s son. “I am totally with Akhilesh and Ram Gopal... party workers welcomed me,” Ram Sewak told ET.

The traditional SP voter is confused. “Vote to Akhilesh ko hi padega, par Netaji ka samman hona chahiye,” says Asa Ram Yadav, a native of Mulayam’s home village Saifai (near Etawah). Saifai block pramukh and mother of party’s Mainpuri MP Tej Pratap Yadav, Mridula Yadav, says: “Akhilesh has done the most for development.” Mridula claims she distributed school bags featuring Akhilesh’s photo to school children last week. The village falls in the Jaswant Nagar assembly seat, from where Shivpal Yadav is the MLA. “Mulayam held this seat since 1967.





In 1996, he gave it to Shivpal who is the 4-time MLA since. I’m sure Akhilesh and Mulayam will soon find a solution,” Mulayam’s younger brother Abhay Ram in Saifai says. Tempers are, however, running high in the Yadavland as party offices are being guarded like fiefdoms. Fifty policemen are guarding SP’s Etawah office, where Sunil Yadav is refusing to make way for Ram Gopal’s new choice, Gopal Yadav. When Gopal came to take charge on Friday, Sunil refused to vacate the chair. Gopal pulled another chair and sat alongside.

“There was an unauthorised kabza (taking possession) of the party office in Firozabad. We will not allow that. We have not removed anyone’s picture here, like in Firozabad,” says SP’s Etawah MLA Raghuraj Singh sitting alongside Sunil and pointing to Ram Gopal’s pictures on the walls. “Akhilesh is the future CM but the tree was planted by Netaji. Unse bada na koi hai, naa hoga,” says Singh, who is both Akhilesh and Shivpal’s choice for the Etawah seat. In Kannauj — LS MP Dimple Yadav’s (Akhilesh’s wife) constituency — party workers burnt Shivpal’s photos last week.

With SP busy in fighting, BJP is smelling an opportunity. BJP MP Ashok Kumar, who won the Etawah LS seat in 2014 by over 2 lakh votes breaking a 15-year hiatus for the party, says: “We will shock everyone by winning assembly seats here this time.”