Mulayam Singh will meet Election Commission today to save ‘cycle’ symbol
NEW DELHI/LUCKNOW : Loyalists of Samajwadi Party patriarch Monday morning started up lining in the national capital to ensure that the ‘cycle’ symbol remains with Mulayam Singh Yadav against the backdrop of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav seeking to take control of the party.Amar Singh reaches Mulayam Singh Yadav’s residence in Delhi.
Sources said that Mulayam Singh , Amar Singh and Shivpal Yadav will meet Election Commission at 4:30 pm to stake claim over Samajwadi Party symbol ‘Cycle’.
Before leaving for Delhi, Shivpal had said, Mulayam Singh Yadav is the SP national president even now and will continue to be.
Samajwadi Party MP Amar Singh says he won`t mind his expulsion from the party but would definitely feel bad if Mulayam Singh Yadav discards him from his heart.
“I will feel bad if Mulayam ji will discard me from his heart and if I would be expelled from the party then it will not be regretful for me,” Singh says. Singh further says he would not mind being called as villain as long as Mulayam is with him.
The Congress said that rift should not directly or indirectly strengthen the hands of the BJP or others. “There is of course a larger issue that is why other political formation would be concerned and that it should not directly or indirectly strengthen the hand of the forces like the BJP,” Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi told ANI.
Rajya Sabha member Naresh Agarwal, who is on Akhilesh’s side, today advised Mulayam to maintain distance with Amar Singha and Shivpal Yadav, saying wanted to ruin Netaji.
When Akhilesh Yadav, then only 39 years old, won Uttar Pradesh in 2012 to become the country’s youngest Chief Minister, his victory was powered by his free-wheeling campaign, promising jobs, education and development, all while mounted on a cycle, which is the Samajwadi Party’s symbol.
Today, his father, Mulayam Singh Yadav, will claim that the symbol – with its easy and established recall – be considered his political property as the Samajwadi Party cleaves just ahead of the election in Uttar Pradesh.
Mulayam Singh, 77, is expected to meet the powerful Election Commission at 4 pm, accompanied by trusted advisor and younger brother Shivpal Yadav, a top-line contributing factor to Akhilesh Yadav’s hostile takeover yesterday of the Samajwadi Party.
Mulayam Singh, who has arrived in Delhi from Lucknow, also met with Amar Singh, another close lieutenant who is on Akhilesh Yadav’s hit list. Mr Singh has reportedly lined up a slew of legal experts to back the argument that Mulayam Singh remains the chief of the original Samajwadi Party and is therefore the rightful owner of the cycle symbol.
The cycle may be “frozen” by the Election Commission while it decides the case. But at a party gathering attended by thousands yesterday in Lucknow, Akhilesh Yadav, in a hostile takeover, was named President of the Samajwadi Party; he then pushed his father into retirement by declaring he would now function as patron and mentor.
None of that is acceptable to Mulayam Singh. “I have done no wrong, nobody can accuse me of corruption or any other wrongdoing,” he said today, adding that its symbol is “my signature.”
Mulayam Singh and his aides like Shivpal Yadav and Amar Singh insist his faction is the legit Samajwadi Party, a hollow claim given that on two occasions on the weekend, most party members and lawmakers chose to attend Akhilesh Yadav’s meetings, ignoring rival gatherings called by Mulayam Singh.
If Akhilesh Yadav also officially seeks rights to the symbol, the cycle may be parked or “frozen” by the commission while it decides the case. On record, it is Mulayam Singh who currently has ownership since he filed the original documents when his party was founded. But the Chief Minister’s team is expected to present videos and signed petitions to prove his command over the Samajwadi Party.
Akhilesh Yadav’s wresting of control of the party has been anything but a stealth attack. For months, backed by another uncle, Ram Gopal Yadav, he contested various decisions taken by his father, including the shunning of an alliance with the Congress and the Chief Minister’s choice of candidates for the approaching election.
