Akhilesh is willing to take on his uncle Shivpal Yadav, who keeps demanding that the former chief minister hand over the position of national president to his father Mulayam Singh Yadav as promised before the elections. But Akhilesh is firm that he would not oblige and keeps reminding his uncle and others that the party constitution had made him president for full five years, so there was question of quitting.

Ever since Shivpal Yadav announced that he would form Samajwadi Secular Front, Akhilesh has been on a mission to purge the party of supporters of his uncle. Further, he has provoked the uncle for a head-on clash by removing his close associates from the party alleging involvement in anti-party activities.

Akhilesh is aware that the rival faction in the family has started praising chief minister Yogi Adityanath and his government to embarrass the party president. So much so that Shivpal Yadav and his son Akshay visited the chief minister and praised the functioning of the government. Similarly, Aparna Yadav, the second daughter-in-law, also invited Yogi Adityanath to her Goshala and praised the new government while asking her brother-in-law to quit as national president.

It is under these circumstances that Akhilesh Yadav has resolved to build the party organization with the enrolment of new members and asked party leaders to take on BJP and expose the Yogi Adityanath government for the deterioration in the law order situation and other important issues confronting the people of state. In fact, Akhilesh was responsible for organizing the demonstration by the opposition parties on the first day of UP legislature session. The demonstration was to protest against the deteriorating law and order situation and the government’s failure to implement the promise of loan waiver made during election campaign.

Akhilesh has successfully reached out to people in distress or places where caste and communal clashes took place by sending a high power team of the party and highlighting the issue to the media.

He has also launched a membership drive to enroll new members to the party. According to SP spokesman Rajendra Choudhry, apart from people filling up membership forms at the SP headquarters and party offices in every district across the state, the party is, for the first time, extending membership through phone calls. It has set up a dedicated number (78599-99999), where people can drop a missed call and will be contacted by the party for further formalities.

Chaudhary says that as per the latest amendment in the party's constitution, members will be enrolled for a period of five years instead of the existing three years. When the drive was launched in 2014, a total of 1.44 lakh people had enrolled as members of the party. "To be recognized as an active member and be eligible for party posts, a general member is required to enlist 50 new members," he said. The membership drive, especially through the phone call, was getting good response all over the state, he claimed.

Akhilesh is meeting party leaders and workers at the party headquarters daily and telling them to work hard for the Lok Sabha polls. He is also willing to play an important role in the opposition unity efforts to take on BJP in the Lok Sabha polls. He has said repeatedly that only a united opposition led by Samajwadi Party can take on BJP and that he was willing to negotiate with other parties in this regard. (IPA Service)