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  India   Akhilesh Yadav emerges stronger as SP wobbles

Akhilesh Yadav emerges stronger as SP wobbles

Published : Oct 27, 2016, 1:22 am IST
Updated : Oct 27, 2016, 1:22 am IST

The Samajwadi Party may have lost ground in the bitter battle being played out in Uttar Pradesh for the past two months but, interestingly, it is chief minister Akhilesh Yadav who has gained tremendou

The Samajwadi Party may have lost ground in the bitter battle being played out in Uttar Pradesh for the past two months but, interestingly, it is chief minister Akhilesh Yadav who has gained tremendous support and popularity.

It is young party workers growing support to the CM that has left the entire senior leadership almost stunned and has reportedly forced SP president Mulayam Singh Yadav to give up the idea of a change of leadership in the government.

For the first time, the two-day drama at the SP office during which thousands of youths rooted for Akhilesh Yadav and hooted out the senior leaders showed that Akhilesh Yadav has managed to establish himself as a youth icon in the state politics.

The SP never witnessed the kind of scenes that it saw on Monday when Mulayam Singh Yadav and Shivpal Yadav addressed the party leaders. There was constant slogan shouting in favour of Akhilesh and Mulayam Singh Yadav, more than once, was forced to ask the crowds to keep quiet but to no avail.

State president Shivpal Yadav was not only interrupted many times during his speech — in which he criticised the CM — but also faced uneasy questions from the audience. When he said he had widely toured the state, a youth leader Atul Pradhan shouted, “You went around in a helicopter” which forced Shivpal Yadav to ask “Helicopter tumhare baap ka tha kya ”

The misbehaviour of the senior party leaders became pronounced after the CM gave an “emotional” speech.

“It was a son who was addressing a father and not a CM. Akhilesh endeared himself to us when he turned emotional and even broke down during his speech. He asked his father to punish him if he had done any wrong but, later, Mulayam and Shivpal humiliated and insulted him, forgetting that he is also the CM. Yet Akhilesh did not react,” said a senior MLA, who was present at the meeting.

The thousands of young men who remained outside the party headquarters for two consecutive days, shouting slogans like ‘Jai Akhilesh, Sirf Akhilesh’ and demanding that he should be named the CM candidate, may not subscribe to the party ideology and may not even be familiar with the life and times of Ram Manohar Lohia, but they definitely reflect the mood of the youth.

Akhilesh Yadav has proved that he has the energy of the youth behind him even if they are bereft of party ideology.

Sources claim that it was this tremendous support that Akhilesh got from the youth during the past two days, forced the party president to change his plans of making any further changes in the party or the government.

Location: India, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow