By the book: UP CM’s convention technically appears to be on strong footing
When Ramgopal Yadav summoned the convention on Friday afternoon, he was in the party and was the national general secretary and the parliamentary board member. He claims to have an authority to convene the convention.
Samajwadi Party (SP) national president Mulayam Singh Yadav may have declared the ‘extraordinary emergency national convention’ ultra vires and expelled national general president Ramgopal Yadav, national vice-president Kironmoy Nanda, and Rajya Sabha member Naresh Agrawal, but the numbers, technicalities and the homework done by the Akhilesh-Ramgopal duo appear to hold them on a strong footing.
When Ramgopal Yadav summoned the convention on Friday afternoon, he was in the party and was the national general secretary and the parliamentary board member. He claims to have an authority to convene the convention. Akhilesh, however, by any capacity had no constitutional authority to summon a national convention. He is neither in the state body or the national body.
Soon after Ramgopal called the convention, Mulayam sacked him on Friday night and technically he had no right to hold the convention. But when Mulayam revoked his expulsion, Ramgopal, at the time of the convention, automatically had the authority.
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Ramgopal, who was again expelled by Mulayam two hours after the convention, had been doing the homework for the convention for the last two months.
“Thousands of party workers and leaders wrote to me seeking a convention,” he had been saying. He has letters to show to the Election Commission or the court of law to prove his point.
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At the time of the convention, all the MLAs (except Pawan Pandey), MLCs (barring five youth leaders like Sunil Sajan or Udaiveer Singh), MPs, senior leaders, were in the party. All of those who attended the meeting were authorised party members. SP had elected Mulayam the national president at the last convention .
The day before the convention, 214 MLAs and 50 MLCs had signed a register when they attended the meeting convened by Akhilesh. Against this, Mulayam had the support of only five MLAs, giving a clear majority to Akhilesh.
Akhilesh and Ramgopal did a strong documentation of the proceedings — in writing, photography, signatures, and videography. Akhilesh deployed drone cameras and crane-mounted cameras to document Saturday’s meeting and the Sunday’s convention.
Ramgopal and Akhilesh have a plan B too. Reportedly, in any such event if they don’t get the SP name and symbol in time, they have made plans to contest elections as a party. Ramgopal has reportedly been in talks with Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya)(SJP-R) that has the banyan tree as its symbol. They have more such options.
For the latest updates on the Yadav family feud, click here