SP appears headed for open war

Ruling Samajwadi Party today appeared to be headed for an open war, with an unhappy Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav reportedly planning to field his own candidates for the Assembly polls, parallel to the list released by his father and party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav.
A day after Mulayam announced candidates for 325 of the 403 seats in his absence, Akhilesh held a meeting here with MLAs and other loyalists who have not found place in the list.
Afterwards, he conveyed his displeasure to Mulayam, who along with his brother and state party chief Shivpal Yadav, had declared the candidates at a hurriedly-convened press conference while Akhilesh was away on a tour of Bundelkhand.

After the meeting between the CM and his loyalists who have been denied tickets, SP MLA Indal Singh said Akhilesh was likely to announce his own list of candidates for UP polls.
"We are blessed to be Akhileshwadi. Mulayam is our role model, he is our 'neta' (leader) but today people of Uttar Pradesh need Akhilesh. And there have been some conspiracies against him," he added.
Another MLA Brijlal Sonkar said, "the CM has asked us to do the campaign in our respective constituencies..We all are Samajwadis not opportunist...We don't want ticket but we want party to win and want to make Akhilesh the CM of UP and in 2019 we will take Akhilesh to Delhi as PM of our county."

Hectic political activities began in the morning with party leaders gathering outside the residences of Akhilesh and Mulayam. A big crowd assembled outside Shivpal's residence also.

The Chief Minister and Shivpal have been involved in a power struggle for several months now.
The list, which includes 176 sitting MLAs, has left out several pro-Akhilesh ministers, including Ram Govind Chaudhary, Pawan Pandey and Arvind Singh Gope, and does not carry names of over 50 sitting MLAs.
Besides, 10 ministers, including Shivpal, sacked by the chief minister over the past few months have got tickets. These former ministers were in open defiance of Akhilesh and it paid off.

Within hours after release of the list, which clearly bore the stamp of Mulayam and Shivpal, Akhilesh had said he would take up the choice of candidates with the party chief.
"The list does not include names of certain candidates who are sure to win. I will take it up with the SP chief and tell him that some of them have done really good work and they should be given tickets," an upset Akhilesh had said last night.
In a late night tit-for-tat action, the Chief Minister struck back sacking two Shivpal loyalists -- Surabhi Shukla, vice-chairperson of UP Awas Vikas Parishad and her husband Sandeep Shukla from the post of advisor of Rajkiya Nirman Nigam. Sandeep has been fielded from Sultanpur Sadar seat.