Why Mulayam Singh Yadav's turf is worrying Samajwadi Party

On Sunday, hours before chief election commissioner Sunil Arora was laying out the plan for the next big battle, 250 km away in Mainpuri, the nucleus of the proverbial Yadav belt and the constituency of Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, was witnessing some unusual rumblings. Unusual, because the party’s state chief Naresh Uttam dissolved the 51-member district unit on Mulayam’s home turf before he was about to take the electoral plunge.

It was a crackdown against the simmering discontent in Mainpuri against the ‘denial’ of SP ticket to the sitting MP Tej Pratap Singh Yadav, who is Mulayam’s grand-nephew. Effigies of party’s general secretary, Ram Gopal Yadav, were also burnt by a group of workers reportedly close to Tej Pratap. Protests are not new to SP, riven by internal fissures since 2016, but that it would happen in the party patriarch’s constituency, few could have imagined. Although Tej Pratap himself said he was hopeful of getting the ticket from a neighbouring seat, he couldn’t stop his supporters from protesting.

In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, where all parties had been swept by the ‘Modi wave’, only the Yadav belt — Mainpuri, Etawah, Firozabad, Badaun, Kannauj and Sambhal districts — in Central UP had reined in the tide, winning all five seats where Yadav family members contested. This time, however, the Yadav citadel appears to be crumbling under its own weight.

The fault line that was running through the family for the past three years has officially divided it. And Mulayam’s estranged younger brother Shivpal Yadav, with his Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party Lohia (PSPL), is ready to take on the family, led by his son Aditya Yadav and party chief Akhilesh Yadav. Although Shivpal has declared to contest at all 80 seats in UP, where he can damage his former party most is the Yadav belt.

He himself is taking on Ram Gopal’s son Akshay in Firozabad and has promised that barring Netaji, against whom he will not field any canddiate, he would spare an easy contest to any other family members contesting — Dharmendra Yadav in Badaun and Akhilesh’s wife Dimple in Kannauj. Akhilesh and Tej Pratap are likely to figure in the next lists. The presence of Shivpal’s candidate on the other seat in the family bastion, Etawah, will also make it tough for the SP candidate Kamlesh Katheria.

In Firozabad, Shivpal has been bolstered by the support of Mulayam’s close confidante, relative and party MLA from Sirsaganj, Hariom Yadav. A former local MLA Mohammad Azim has also joined him, making the going cumbersome for Akshay, who has had an unimpressive run as MP in the past five years.

While in Badaun, Mulayam’s other nephew Dharmendra was busy planning to counter the strategy of Shivpal, who enjoyed sway over party cadre because of his association with SP since its inception, he was jolted by Congress’ announcement to field four-time MP Saleem Sherwani from the seat. Despite finishing third in 2009, Sherwani polled nearly 2 lakh votes and is likely to cut into Dharmendra’s Muslim votes.

According to political observers, while Shivpal’s decision to fight the polls on all 80 seats is aimed at denting SP’s prospects and proving that Akhilesh is an “unsuccessful” leader, he can do it more effectively in the area of his influence in this belt. A local leader aptly put Shivpal’s plan as “hum to dobenge sanam, tujhe bhi le doobenge (We will drown but will take you down with us)”.

While it remains to be seen how the SP-BSP alliance works on the ground, a section of party workers are unhappy with it. According to senior SP leaders in the Yadav family’s ancestral village Saifai, the alliance with BSP is between two leaders only and not among the grass-roots workers. Many Samajwadi party leaders, who are likely to be denied tickets are already exploring options with BJP and Shivpal-led PSPL.

A slogan doing the rounds here is “Saintis (37) Par Lal (Akhilesh), Baki Par Shivpal” (Let’s support SP on its 37 seats. On the remaining, it would be Shivpal). The best case scenario for Akhilesh — and Mayawati — is that this doesn’t translate into reality.