Lucknow: Mulayam Singh Yadav will head a new party called the Samajwadi Secular Morcha, his younger brother Shivpal Yadav said on Friday. He said he was launching the party to “restore to Mulayam Singh his lost honour”.
This comes weeks after the Samajwadi Party suffered a bruising defeat in the state elections that was blamed on a months-long feud between Shivpal and his nephew Akhilesh Yadav over control of the party.
The senior SP leader had on many occasions earlier hinted that he would soon launch a campaign to unite “samajwadis” to bring them on a single platform.
Shivpal Yadav had recently asked his cousin Akhilesh Yadav to hand over the reins of the SP to his father Mulayam, failing which, he warned, he will float a new political front.
“Akhilesh had promised to hand over the party to ‘netaji’ [Mulayam]. He should now do so and we all will strengthen the SP. I had also given him three months’ time. Otherwise, I will constitute a new secular front,” Shivpal had said in Etawah.
The SP witnessed a bitter feud between Shivpal and Akhilesh in the run-up to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls.
The SP contested the polls under Akhilesh’s leadership but suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the BJP.
After filing his nomination for the polls in January, Shivpal had said he would form a new party after the election results are declared. But, subsequently he said there was no such move.
