Toiled hard for SP but not given my due: Shivpal Singh

Sidelined senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Shivpal Singh Yadav on Friday said he was not given his due despite playing an important role in making his brother Mulayam Singh Yadav the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh thrice and his nephew Akhilesh Yadav once.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of the 72nd birthday celebrations of his cousin but also an arch rival within the party, Ram Gopal Yadav at Firozabad, Shivpal Singh said he has toiled hard for the SP since its formation but even as the party came to power four times, he did not get what he deserved.

Shivpal Singh has been pushed into political oblivion by the present dispensation in the SP ever since a bitter feud broke out within the party and a power struggle ensued thereafter for its control in 2016.

Mulayam Singh threw his lot behind Shivpal Singh but stopped short of disowning his son, leaving the Jaswantnagar legislator even more cut up.

While Shivpal Singh did not show any bitterness with the 'birthday boy' on Friday, he wished Ram Gopal well while standing by him during the cake cutting ceremony and also warned his cousin and other senior leaders of the party to "beware of flatterers".

He said the pitiable present condition of the party where it has just 48 legislators in the 403-member state Assembly was a result of his humiliation, and left the venue after a ten-minute stop over.

The two estranged cousins were seen together in public for the first time after more than two years.

Both have been accusing each other of conspiring against the party and hob-mobbing with the Bharatiya Janata Party, to the determent of secular forces led by the SP.

The birthday of Ram Gopal, a Rajya Sabha member and mentor of Akhilesh Yadav, is being celebrated by his followers and fellow politicians at the Ram Leela grounds in Firozabad, a family bastion.

--IANS

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