Amid a bitter and public war of supremacy in the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP), Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav yesterday met Governor Ram Naik at the Raj Bhavan.
There was no official word from the governor’s office on the meeting and officials said it was a routine meeting in which the chief minister extended “advance greetings” for Diwali to the governor.
Sources, however, said that the 30-minute meeting was “detailed and exhaustive” as the chief minister informed the governor of the developments within his party.
The expulsion of minister of state for forests Tej Narayan Pandey aka Pawan Pandey earlier in the day was also discussed. Akhilesh has been asked by the party to sack him from the ministry as well.
An informed source said that Akhilesh Yadav handed over a letter of support from 205 legislators of his party and briefed Naik about the legislature meeting of his party lawmakers. The move is being seen as an attempt by the chief minister’s camp to pre-empt any move by his uncle Shivpal Yadav and father Mulayam Singh Yadav to upstage him at any point of time in the near future.
SP chief Mulayam has, however, made it clear that for now, there was no move to remove the chief minister. “Akhilesh is the chief minister today and nobody has an objection to it,” the SP supremo told a press conference on Tuesday.
Mulayam had also said that he himself was not interested in the job, as there were just over two months before the notification of the forthcoming state assembly polls.
“Will I become the chief minister for two months? In this time only salaries of government employees will be distributed,” he said.
But despite the bravado and claims that all is well Akhilesh does not seem to be in a mood to relent and has reportedly refused to take back the four sacked ministers in his cabinet until some young leaders and Rajya Sabha member Ram Gopal Yadav, all expelled from the party for six years, are taken back.
Before meeting the governor, Akhilesh met party legislators, members of the legislative council and other leaders, including those who have been expelled from the party.
Meanwhile, in a signal that rapprochement is unlikely between the warring factions, the Samajwadi Party’s state unit president Shivpal Yadav yesterday started vacating his official residence here, three days after being booted out as minister for the second time.
Earlier in the morning, in an indication that he does not want to be taken back in the state government, Shivpal’s staff began removing his ministerial name plate from his official residence.
Shivpal, the second most senior minister in the four-and-a-half years-old Samajwadi Party government, was removed last week from the ministry for the second time in the last one month. The red beacon atop his vehicle was taken away and he surrendered his official vehicle to the state’s ‘Rajya Sampatti Vibhag’ (state property division), an aide said.