Shivpal Yadav floats new outfit Samajwadi Secular Morcha.
LUCKNOW : Former U P minister Shivpal Yadav announced on Friday he was breaking away from the Samajwadi Party and starting his own outfit headed by party patriarch and former CM Mulayam Singh Yadav.News agency ANI reported that the new party would be called Samajwadi Secular Morcha.
“To give Netaji back his honour and to bring all Samajwadis together, the new morcha would be announced soon,” Yadav told This comes weeks after the Samajwadi Party suffered a bruising defeat in the state elections that was blamed on a months-long feud between Shivpal and his nephew Akhilesh Yadav over control of the party.
on Friday he was breaking away from the Samajwadi Party and starting his own outfit headed by party patriarch and former CM Mulayam Singh Yadav.News agency ANI reported that the new party would be called Samajwadi Secular Morcha.
“To give Netaji back his honour and to bring all Samajwadis together, the new morcha would be announced soon,” Yadav told This comes weeks after the Samajwadi Party suffered a bruising defeat in the state elections that was blamed on a months-long feud between Shivpal and his nephew Akhilesh Yadav over control of the party.
Akhilesh Yadav, the former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, will have to now officially contend with father Mulayam Singh as a political opponent. A new party, headed by Mulayam Singh, is being formed, claimed the 77-year-old’s younger brother, Shivpal Yadav.
The new outfit – described as a “secular front’ will be called Samajwadi Secular Morcha, said Shivpal Yadav, who is seen as a primary reason for the estrangement that engulfed Akhilesh and Mulayam Singh ahead of the election in Uttar Pradesh, which their Samajwadi Party lost big-time to the BJP.
When they should have been focusing on campaigning, the Yadavs lavished time and attention to their dispute. Akhilesh Yadav, 44, felt his father was being misled by Shivpal Yadav and that together, they were plotting to exclude him from crucial decisions like selecting candidates for the election.
At a meeting in January, attended by thousands of party workers in Lucknow, Akhilesh and Shivpal Yadav expressed unequivocal contempt for each other. Akhilesh Yadav then wrested control of the Samajwadi Party, replacing his father as President, a decision which was not welcomed by the patriarch.
Though Mulayam Singh went on to campaign for the Samajwadi Party, it was reported that Shivpal Yadav covertly supported BJP candidates running against those chosen by Akhilesh Yadav. Akhilesh Yadav also defied his father’s wishes to sign an ill-fated alliance with Rahul Gandhi and the Congress, a partnership which was rejected by voters.
