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Lucknow, Claims of all being well within the Yadav family appear to be hollow.
Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav airdashed to Lucknow soon after cousin and national general secretary Ramgopal Yadav went public in criticising the dismissal of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav from the post of party state president.
The Yadav family ‘Mahabharat’ is now live on news channels.
In an unprecedented move, Ramgopal Yadav chose to speak at length to a news channel at its studio where between the lines he blamed the party patriarch of committing a “mistake” by removing Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav as party’s UP president and that “differences” had arisen due to some “misunderstanding”.
Ramgopal virtually shared inner family/party details with the world when he spoke of an angry ‘netaji’ giving a dressing-down to son over the phone on Tuesday evening apparently after someone (read Amar Singh) poisoned his ears.
“He called to instruct about issuing a letter relieving the Chief Minister of the post of state president at once.”
“He was giving me an order, not asking for my advice, so I did as was told. However, I did inform the Chief Minister before making the letter public. He had already received a call from netaji and was aware of the angry mood,” said Ramgopal to the news channel.
Responding to a question about who could have precipitated the crisis, Ramgopal named newly inducted Rajya Sabha MP Amar Singh.
“This ‘sahib’ concerned had always tried to damage the party. Workers are demanding action against the person who is damaging the party and something will have to be done on priority,” said Ramgopal.
“Netaji will have to take this matter seriously. Something needs to be done against these disruptive forces,” he said, adding that such people wanted to destabilise the Akhilesh Yadav government.
Answering a question to decipher Amar Singh’s claim of being a Mulayamwadi instead of Samajwadi, Ramgopal said it meant that he was concerned only with netaji and the party could well go to hell.
According to Ramgopal, the present crisis could have been averted if netaji would have asked Akhilesh to resign rather than dismissing him which led to Akhilesh stripping uncle Shivpal of key portfolios in reaction.
“He could have been told that elections are coming and you continue as Chief Minister and let Shivpal handle the work of state president.”
While Ramgopal corroborated that the present sequence of events had weakened the party at a crucial moment, he was hopeful that things could be sorted in a day or two once the family sat together to thrash out differences.
However, he dismissed all formulas doing the rounds of establishing ceasefire as pure gossip, including Shivpal’s portfolios being restored and Akhilesh being made the party president once again.
The first family member to arrive from Safai on Thursday morning, Ramgopal spent some time with the Chief Minister before speaking to the media.
Chacha Shivpal Singh Yadav, who arrived from Delhi later in the day where he had held a marathon meeting with Mulayam, claimed that he was agreeable to whatever ‘netaji’ wanted.
Speaking to the media he played down the crisis saying the netaji’s verdict was final and he had no problems with posts and positions. “He has given me the responsibility of the party. We have the task of bringing the party back to power in 2017 and I will do my best,” he said.
Contrary to Ramgopal, Shivpal denied that the events of the past three days–sacking of two ministers, removal of the chief secretary and change of his own portfolios–would harm the party’s prospects. “In fact, all this has galvanised party workers into action,” he maintained.
Reacting to BSP supremo Mayawati’s statement that Mulayam Singh Yadav should retire from active politics, Shivpal asked her to keep her opinion to herself.
Meanwhile, a clearly tense netaji refused to interact with the media at the airport where he arrived by an Indigo flight and drove straight to his residence where he has reportedly summoned son chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, who is yet to arrive.
