When chief minister Akhilesh Yadav tried to fight against corruption and stopped the entry of persons with criminal records, he invited wrath of seniors in the family including his father Mulayam Singh Yadav and uncle Shivpal Yadav.

Akhilesh Yadav had to pay price of being removed from the post of state party president and all his decisions were reverted.

So much so, those ministers whom he removed from the ministry including controversial Gaya Prasad Prajapati facing allegations of promoting illegal mining, were brought back in the cabinet at the intervention of the SP national president Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav had protested the influence of outsider “Amar Singh” in the party as well as in the government but party president Mulayam Singh Yadav elevated him to the position of national general secretary of SP..

Akhilesh Yadav had openly blocked the merger of Quami Ekta Dal of mafia turned politician Mukhtar Ansari with Samajwadi Party. Now again state president Shivpal Yadav announced that Quami Ekta Dal would be merged with the party without Mukhtar Ansari. He further said Mulayam Singh Yadav ws keen on merger.

Again Akhilesh Yadav paid the price for open confrontation with his uncle Shivpal Yadav when his own team members including two MLCs who were leaders of youth brigade of party, were removed from the party by Shivpal Yadav on the charges of indiscipline.

Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and his supporters were so much angry with this move that as a protest, a large number of youth leaders in different parts of state sent their resignations from the posts they were holding. Significantly enough, Shivpal Yadav accepted their resignations.

If this was not enough, recently state president Shivpal Yadav changed tickets to 12 candidates including those who were considered to be close to Akhilesh Yadav.

Much to the annoyance to chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, state SP announced ticket to Mr Aman Mani Tripathi who was arrested in connection with murder of his wife and is facing CBI inquiry as well. It may be mentioned that Amarn Mani Tripathi’s parents too are in jail for the murder of Hindi poet Madhumita.

Now party and the state government are divided in different camps and leaders are quite vocal in showing their loyalties to their masters in the family.

Seasoned political analysts feel that the fight for supremacy will again hot up at the time of distribution of tickets and each faction leader would ensure more tickets to his supporters to bargain for the post of chief ministership if party gets majority in 2017 assembly polls.

It was because of conflict in the family and the party, Mulayam Singh Yadav postponed his rally in Azamgarh scheduled for October 6 to launch party’s campaign.

Again due to conflict in the family, chief minister Akhilesh Yadav also postponed his vikas rath yatra.

Political analysts also feel that muslim voters who had been supporting the party since 1990 are now watching the developments. They would not like to support a weak party who would not be able to fight BJP.

Muslims might shift to a significant extent to BSP supremo Mayawati who is also trying to build a dalit-muslim alliance to grab power.

On the other hand, Congress Party under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi who completed 2500 kms long khaat yatra and road shows in the state focused on the problems being faced by farmers and promised them their debts would be written off by the government and power bills would be reduced to half once Congress was voted to power. In the state. (IPA)