 "Akhilesh Yadav")
In a big blow to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav’s camp, his supporter and MLC Udayveer Singh was on Saturday removed from the Samajwadi Party for six years.
Singh, who has earlier accused party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav’s second wife of hatching a conspiracy to sideline his stepson, Akhilesh, had also written a ‘personal letter’ to Mulayam, advising the party patriarch to step aside and make way for his son. The personal letter, however, was leaked on social media.
It was reported that Mulayam, upset with Singh’s letter, slammed him in a crucial party meet, saying there would be zero tolerance for dissent in the party.
According to reports, Udayveer Singh’s letter to Mulayam read: “As this information came out in the open that you want Akhilesh to become the CM, conspiracies were hatched within the family. Though Akhilesh’s step-mother herself remained behind the scenes, Shivpal came forward as her political face and started contacting senior party leaders to prevent this.”
Amid the rift in the Yadav family deepening with each passing day, senior party leader are meeting Akhilesh around 4:30 pm on Saturday to discuss the way forward.
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“We will meet UP CM today around 4:30 PM and we told the same thing to Mulayam ji. We requested that the controversy should end as the elections are upon us,” party leader Beni Prasad Verma said.
On Friday, Akhilesh had skipped a crucial party meeting convened by state unit chief and his uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav.
Akhilesh did not attend the meeting of district presidents of the Samajwadi Party, despite Shivpal driving down to his residence on Friday to personally invite him for the event.
The meeting was called to discuss the 2017 Assembly elections and to prepare for a silver jubilee function of the ruling party scheduled for November 5.
Sources said the chief minister was in no mood to relent on his stated opposition to the entry of criminals and re-entry of ministers accused of graft into the SP fold, and his demand for a complete say in decisions on distribution of tickets for the Assembly elections.
Shivpal is learnt to have told the SP’s district presidents at the meeting that Akhilesh would be Chief Minister again if the party returns to power in the 2017 elections.
“I am ready to give it in writing on a stamp paper that if we win a majority, Akhilesh will be the next Chief Minister,” he said.
