With less than two months to go for UP polls, the ruling Samajwadi party family feud reached its peak on Friday with SP Chief Mulayam Singh expelling his son CM Akhilesh Yadav from the party for six years.
“For us, priority is to save the party,” Mulayam Singh Yadav said.
Addressing the media on Friday, the seasoned politician also announced his decision to expel his cousin Ram Gopal Yadav for six years. Ram Gopal is known to be close to Akhilesh while Mulayam Singh has teamed up with brother Shivpal Yadav.
“Ram Gopal Yadav is ruining Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh's future. Ram Gopal Yadav made the party very weak,” said Mulayam.
Friday’s shocker came after Akhilesh released a parallel list of 235 candidates after Mulayam had released his list.
The Yadav family feud has been brewing for some time now with two camps within the party struggling to establish itself as the main power centre.
While, Shivapal Yadav-Mulayam Singh lobby has the support of party seniors and of recently reinstated Rajya Sabha MP Amar Singh, son Akhilesh has the support in the younger ranks of the SP.
Things turned ugly in September with Akhilesh rejecting Shivpal’s proposal to allow a merger of the Qaumi Ekta Dal (QED) with the SP.
Shivpal even threatened to resign from the party after the embarrassment, but party chief Mulayam Singh stopped him from doing so.
But in subsequent developments, Akhilesh was replaced by Shivpal as the party’s state chief and Shivpal lost his ministership.
A much talked about reconciliation move to fill the fault lines failed massively in October with Shivpal calling his nephew Akhilesh a “liar”.