Lucknow: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav seems to have mended fences with his estranged uncle Shivpal Yadav as the former Chief Minister announced alliance with the latter’s Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) months ahead of Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.
After the 45-minute long meeting at Akhilesh’s residence in Lucknow, the SP leader tweeted a picture of him and Shivpal Yadav, and said that the two leaders discussed the modalities of an “alliance”.
“Met national president of PSPL and finalised alliance. The SP’s policy to take along regional parties is strengthening the party and take SP and its allies towards victory,” Akhilesh said in a tweet in Hindi after the meeting.
प्रसपा के राष्ट्रीय अध्यक्ष जी से मुलाक़ात हुई और गठबंधन की बात तय हुई।
क्षेत्रीय दलों को साथ लेने की नीति सपा को निरंतर मजबूत कर रही है और सपा और अन्य सहयोगियों को ऐतिहासिक जीत की ओर ले जा रही है। #बाइस_में_बाइसिकल pic.twitter.com/x3k5wWX09A
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— Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) December 16, 2021
The meeting came ahead of the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly elections which are scheduled to take place early next year.
Akhilesh reached Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) founder’s residence in the afternoon and had closed door talks with him for about 40 minutes.
Hundreds of supporters of both parties gathered outside Shivpal’s residence raising slogan “Chacha-Bhatija zindabad”.
SP founder Mulayam SIngh Yadav was present at Shivpal’s residence before Akhilesh reached there, as per sources.
The relationship between uncle (66) and nephew had gone sour in 2016, ahead of the 2017 elections, with the sacking of Shivpal by Akhilesh when he was Chief Minister.
Akhilesh became the SP president in January 2017 and Shivpal formed his own party- the Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) after public differences with Akhilesh Yadav.
Reacting to the meet, deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said the meeting will not impact BJP’s prospects in the polls.
“BJP is going to form majority government again in 2022 by winning over 300 seats. Whether there was a meeting of ‘Chacha’ ‘Bhatija’ or ‘Bua’ ‘Bhatija’ or SP or Congress or all of them, only lotus (BJP’s election symbol) will bloom,” he said.
In the 2017 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP had bagged 312 seats out of the 403-seats while Samajwadi Party (SP) had managed to get 47 seats. Whereas, Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) won 19 and Congress won only seven seats. The rest of the seats were bagged by other candidates.
