Shivpal excluded from SP legislature party meet, says will talk to his supporters

Lucknow, March 26

Indicating continued strains in the first family of the Samajwadi Party, senior party leader Shivpal Singh Yadav on Saturday said he was not invited for the important meeting of the legislature party, in which Akhilesh Yadav was unanimously elected the leader.

“I have no information about the meeting. I tried to contact the SP leaders but I have not got any information about it,” Shivpal told the media here.

“Under these circumstances my going to the legislature party meeting will not be correct,” he said.

The SP MLA from Jaswant Nagar seat said he will work according to the will of the party, but at the same time wondered why he was not invited to the meet while all the other MLAs were.

The younger brother of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav said that he fought on the party’s bicycle symbol and even campaigned for it in Karhal and many other places.

“Despite this, I don’t know why I was not informed about the legislature party meeting,” he said.

“I will talk to my supporters both in the Samajwadi Party as well as my own party. I have to say nothing about the future as of now.” After remaining at loggerheads since 2017, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and uncle Shivpal had decided to mend fences just before the recently concluded state assembly election.

Their estrangement had resulted in Shivpal’s launching his own party, PSP-L (Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia), before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

In the 2022 assembly polls, the two had put up a united front at behest of Mulayam Singh Yadav.