The ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) presented a united picture yesterday as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav embarked on the first phase of the ‘Samajwadi Vikas Rath Yatra.’
Speculation was rife that SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and his younger brother Shivpal Singh Yadav would give the event a miss, but both turned up.
In the first phase of the Rath Yatra march, which is being seen as a show of strength by Akhilesh, especially after a bitter turf war in the Yadav family and the ruling party, the chief minister will cover 75km and will travel from Lucknow to Unnao, trying to sell his development plank.
But before the function, two groups of Akhilesh supporters clashed with each other, bringing back memories of a similar melee witnessed soon after he was sworn in as the chief minister on March 15, 2012.
In his address, Shivpal said the party was with Akhilesh in his yatra and extended his good wishes to the chief minister for its success.
However, Akhilesh ignored his uncle, who is also the chief of the state unit of the party.
In his address the chief minister took the names of senior ministers, MPs and party office bearers but did not name Shivpal and instead referred to him as the state unit chief only in the end.
Exhorting people to come out in favour of the party in the forthcoming state assembly elections, the 43-year-old chief minister said the time has come to create history of sorts in the state by electing an incumbent government once again.
“We have heralded an era of progress and development in the state and I am confident that the people will elect a Samajwadi Party government again,” Akhilesh said as the huge crowd applauded.
Mulayam began his address by paying homage to soldiers who were martyred and suggested that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should meet their family members. He also chided the young leaders of the party for sloganeering and instead asked them to work seriously for the victory of the party.
Meanwhile, former chief minister and Bahujan Samaj party supremo Mayawati dismissed Akhilesh’s “Vikas Yatra” as a gimmick and hit out at the Samajwadi Party, which she termed as a band of hooligans.
Referring to the scuffle between Samajwadi Party workers in front of the chief minister’s official residence, she said they even forgot the decorum of the place.
She said in a statement that in the last four years the ruling party had presided over chaos and a lumpen system.