Samajwadi Party family feud gives way to BJP in Uttar Pradesh

In 1996, he gave it to Shivpal who is the 4-time MLA since. I’m sure Akhilesh and Mulayam will soon find a solution,” Mulayam’s younger brother Abhay Ram in Saifai says. Tempers are, however, running high in the Yadavland as party offices are being guarded like fiefdoms. Fifty policemen are guarding SP’s Etawah office, where Sunil Yadav is refusing to make way for Ram Gopal’s new choice, Gopal Yadav. When Gopal came to take charge on Friday, Sunil refused to vacate the chair. Gopal pulled another chair and sat alongside.“There was an unauthorised kabza (taking possession) of the party office in Firozabad. We will not allow that. We have not removed anyone’s picture here, like in Firozabad,” says SP’s Etawah MLA Raghuraj Singh sitting alongside Sunil and pointing to Ram Gopal’s pictures on the walls. “Akhilesh is the future CM but the tree was planted by Netaji. Unse bada na koi hai, naa hoga,” says Singh, who is both Akhilesh and Shivpal’s choice for the Etawah seat. In Kannauj — LS MP Dimple Yadav’s (Akhilesh’s wife) constituency — party workers burnt Shivpal’s photos last week.

With SP busy in fighting, BJP is smelling an opportunity. BJP MP Ashok Kumar, who won the Etawah LS seat in 2014 by over 2 lakh votes breaking a 15-year hiatus for the party, says: “We will shock everyone by winning assembly seats here this time.”