Fresh twist in Yadav family feud; Shivpal quits cabinet, party posts

In a fresh twist to the deepening feud in Mulayam Singh Yadav’s family, his brother Shivpal on Thursday night submitted his resignation as ruling Samajwadi Party’s state unit head and as a minister in the cabinet of newphew Akhilesh Yadav with whom he is at loggerheads.

Shivpal submitted his resignation from the two posts to Mulayam who rushed here from Delhi on Thursday evening to douse the flames that threaten to hurt the ruling party in the Assembly polls due early next year, sources said.

Shivpal’s wife Sarla also resignation from the post of District Cooperative Bank Chairperson, Etawah, and son Aditya stepped down as Chairman of Pradeshik Cooperative Federation, the sources added.

However, Mulayam reportedly refused to accept the resignations, they said. Earlier, as the first family of Uttar Pradesh battled an open war within, Mulayam Singh rushed to Lucknow and met Shivpal and Akhilesh separately to douse the flames.

As soon as he reached here, the SP supremo summoned Shivpal and held closed door meeting with him. Shivpal later met Akhilesh at his official residence, sources said, adding the meeting came at the behest of Mulayam.

Immediately thereafter, Mulayam met his Chief Minister son Akhilesh, the sources said.

Earlier, Mulayam’s cousin and SP’s national general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav, who is seen as backing the Chief Minister, said the leadership had committed an unintentional “mistake” by removing Akhilesh as party’s UP president.

Ram Gopal, who had met the Chief Minister, said the “differences” had arisen due to some “misunderstanding”.

He blamed “outsiders” for the crisis, an apparent reference to Amar Singh who recently returned to the party after a number of years. He claimed that “Akhilesh is not angry with anyone and the decision of netaji (Mulayam) is final in the party.” 

The same was said by Shivpal at his press briefing. The feud had spilled into the open after the Chief Minister stripped Shivpal of key ministerial portfolios two days back, hours after he was replaced with Shivpal as the party’s state unit chief by his father.

“Differences do take place on some minor point and they can be resolved.... The leadership, though not deliberately, had made a mistake when CM was removed from the post of (state) president (of SP),” Ram Gopal told reporters.