SP split: Shivpal, Mulayam's new party launch a move closer to BJP?

The duo may have broken away to show anti-Congressism, keep options open for 2019 Lok Sabha polls

The much imminent split in the Samajwadi Party materialised on Friday, with senior party leader Shivpal Yadav announcing that his elder brother Mulayam Singh Yadav would head the Samajwadi Secular Morcha, to be guided by the tenets of social justice and secularism.

Both Mulayam and Shivpal were upset with Akhilesh Yadav for having a seat adjustment with the Congress in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. After the SP’s disastrous showing in the polls, Akhilesh, who had displaced his father as the head of the party, faced strident criticism for having jettisoned the party’s anti-Congressism.

The new front offers Mulayam and Shivpal the opportunity to distance themselves from Akhilesh’s politics, keep their anti-Congressism alive and also keep their options open for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, including exploring the possibility of a seat adjustment with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Shivpal, along with his son, had met UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in the first week of April. Mulayam Singh’s younger son and daughter-in-law have also been public about their admiration for Adityanath. Aparna Yadav, who is married to Mulayam Singh’s younger son Prateek, has met the UP chief minister more than once in the last month and a half. Adityanath also visited the ‘gaushala’, or cowshed, that Aparna runs in Lucknow.

The split in the SP comes in the wake of increased infighting and internal dissent in parties such as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and Biju Janata Dal (BJD).

In Uttar Pradesh, the Adityanath government has also dropped broad hints that it was unlikely to spare the Yadav clan if their names crop up in any corruption scandals. It has withdrawn the official security given to some of the SP leaders.

In his first comments, Akhilesh said it should always be welcomed if an outfit wants to work for social justice and secularism. The split, however, had been in the offing before the polls. Shivpal had contested and won the Jaswantnagar assembly seat in the assembly polls on the SP symbol, but had made his intent of forming a new party clear. At the time, Mulayam Singh was unwilling to walk out of the SP.

Shivpal had recently said the split can be prevented if Akhilesh were to surrender the reins of the party to his father Mulayam Singh within three months. “For social justice, Samajwadi Secular Morcha will be formed. Netaji (Mulayam Singh) will be its national president,” Shivpal said on Friday in his hometown Etawah. He made the announcement after a meeting with Mulayam Singh at a relative’s house in Etawah.

Shivpal didn’t elaborate whether the front would contest elections against SP, or bring other socialist outfits together. However, it will be difficult for most socialist groups, who have announced their opposition to the BJP, to agree to Mulayam Singh and Shivpal’s anti-Congress stance. Last week, opposition leaders who had collected to mark the 95th birth anniversary of late socialist leader Madhu Limaye had given a call to shed anti-Congressism.

Mulayam Singh had earlier blamed his son Akhilesh for the SP’s poor performance in the assembly polls. He had said that his son insulted him. Mulayam said the voters understood that "one who is not loyal to his father, cannot be loyal to anyone" which led to the party's poll debacle.

"I was badly insulted, which I had never faced in my life. Nevertheless, I tolerated it. No leader of any party in India had made his son a chief minister during his lifetime, but I made Akhilesh the Chief Minister of UP," he had said.

Ram Gopal Yadav, Akhilesh’s other uncle and confidant, had said Akhilesh would not resign under any circumstances and that there was no question of handing over the party to Mulayam Singh.