Shivpal Yadav the founder-leader of Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia (PSP-L) has yet again trained guns at his nephew and the Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav.
Shivpal Yadav met the jailed SP leader Azam Khan on Friday (22 April), whose media-aide Fasahat Khan had recently alleged that “Akhilesh Yadav doesn’t want Azam Khan to be out (of jail)” and didn’t make Khan the Leader of Opposition, a post that Akhilesh himself holds. Fasahat also complained that Akhilesh “only went once to meet him [Azam Khan] in the jail.”
After a meeting that lasted for around 45 minutes, as per this report, the MLA from Javsantnagar in Etawah, Shivpal Yadav said that if Netaji [Mulayam Singh Yadav] and Akhilesh Yadav wanted, Azam Khan would have been out of jail. Shivpal lamented that Netaji did nothing and did not raise the matter even in Lok Sabha where he could have protested if he wanted.
While Shivpal Yadav has been attacking Akhilesh Yadav for years now, this is the first time that he also attacked his brother and SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav. Further, he said that ‘at present there is no MLA senior to Azam Bhai in the assembly’ and the Samajwadi Party does not seem to be fighting for him.
These statements are concerning for SP given that Shivpal had created a stir in the party circles a few days ago when, as reported here, he met UP CM Yogi Adityanath at the latter’s official residence which was allegedly followed by a meeting with several top BJP leaders in Delhi.
He also skipped the meeting of opposition MLAs convened by the former on 25 March. When asked if he was contemplating any major decisions in the coming days, he had dropped a hint of tussle saying, “Very soon, I will talk about everything and tell everything.”
However, the erstwhile SP leader kept silent on the question of joining the BJP or forming a new front and said that “first let him [Azam Khan] come out of jail” and “when the right time comes, you will know everything.”
