hi INDiA Copyright 2022-2050
Mulayam Singh Yadav was 82 and had been on life support system since the past one week. He was admitted to the Medanta hospital in Gurugram on August 22. According to hospital sources, he breathed his last at 8.15 am on Monday.
The 82-year-old Samajwadi Party patriarch was facing difficulty in breathing and was under the supervision of an internal medicine expert at the Medanta Hospital, as per sources. Singh was suffering from a urinary infection as well, hospital sources had said. On Sunday, Medanta Hospital had put out a health bulletin stating that the veteran leader’s condition was quite critical and that he was on life-saving drugs.
Reacting to the demise of the veteran leader, PM Narendra Modi said, “Mulayam Singh Yadav’s demise pains me; he was a remarkable personality and was widely admired as a grounded leader. He served people diligently, devoted his life towards popularising ideals of Jayaprakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia.”
“Mulayam Singh Yadav distinguished himself in UP and national politics; he was a key soldier for democracy during Emergency. As defence minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav worked for a stronger India; his Parliamentary interventions were insightful,” PM Modi added.
Mulayam Singh had first contested the Assembly election from Karhal in 1967 on Ram Manohar Lohia’s Samyukta Socialist Party ticket. Groomed by the likes of Ram Manohar Lohia and Raj Narain, Yadav served eight terms as the member of the state Assembly. In 1975, during Indira Gandhi’s imposition of the Emergency, Yadav was arrested and kept in custody for 19 months.
He first became a state minister in 1977. Later, in 1980, he became the president of the Lok Dal in Uttar Pradesh which later became a part of the Janata Dal. In 1982, he was elected leader of the opposition in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council and held that post until 1985. When the Lok Dal party split, Yadav launched the Krantikari Morcha party.
Mulayam Singh Yadav first became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1989. After the collapse of the VP Singh national government in November 1990, Yadav joined Chandra Shekhar’s Janata Dal (Socialist) party and continued in office as the chief minister with the support of the Congress.
His government fell when the Congress withdrew support in April 1991 and Mulayam Singh lost to the BJP in the midterm elections. In 1992, Yadav founded his own Samajwadi Party and then allied with the Bahujan Samaj Party for the elections to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, held in November 1993.
The alliance between the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party prevented the return of the BJP to power in the state and Yadav became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh with the support of Congress and Janata Dal.
In 1995, the SP-BSP alliance broke with the infamous State Guest House incident but Mulayam Singh Yadav made sure that his party bounced back to power in 2003. He was sworn in as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh for the third time in September 2003.
Yadav contested the 2004 Lok Sabha elections from Mainpuri while he was still Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. However, he later resigned from the Lok Sabha and continued as chief minister till 2007 when the SP lost to the BSP in the state elections.