More recently, Shivpal announced that QED had once again been merged with the SP. Shivpal also invited QED president Afzal Ansari to the SP headquarters to discuss preparations for Mulayam’s public meeting in the QED’s home town of Ghazipur on November 23. This will be Mulayam’s first public meeting in the election campaign. It is still uncertain whether Akhilesh would attend the meeting.
More differences surfaced when Mulayam removed Akhilesh from the post of state president and replaced him with Shivpal, a day after Akhilesh sacked two ministers — Gayatri Prasad Prajapati and Raj Kishore Singh — from his cabinet, reportedly on complaints of corruption.
Akhilesh then stripped Shivpal of key portfolios. “But Mulayam saw to it that most of these key portfolios were restored to Shivpal, and Prajapati was back in the cabinet, ignoring Akhilesh’s wishes,” said an SP leader.
