Shivpal Yadav calls Akhilesh’s 1 seat offer a joke, seeks socialist front against BJP

Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia (PSP-L) chief Shivpal Yadav has called the Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav’s offer of leaving ‘one seat’ for his uncle’s party in 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, ‘a joke’.

He said his party was looking for a handful of winnable seats for the PSP-L to enter into any prospective alliance with SP.

Shivpal said he would launch his party’s poll campaign with a rally in Meerut on December 21 and from December 24 onwards the party would launch a state-wide village-level contact programme over farmers’ issues.

The day before Diwali, Akhilesh Yadav had said at a press conference in Saifai, Etawah that his party would make an ‘adjustment’ and leave Shivpal’s Jaswant Nagar seat. He said he would also make Shivpal Yadav a cabinet minister when the SP returned to power in the state. Shivpal is the sitting Jaswant Nagar MLA.

In response, Shivpal dismissed the offer.

“The one-seat offer is a joke. So far as the idea of being (made) a cabinet minister (is concerned), I have been a cabinet minister several times. So, it’s not a big deal. What we are looking for is a handful of winnable seats.”

He reiterated that all socialist parties must come on a single platform if they wished to defeat the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

“Through various ways and over a hundred times, I have said that various socialist forces must unite, giving respectable place to each one of them. So far, as the Samajwadi Party (SP) is concerned, it has not given any positive indications to the overtures and I could not have any dialogue with the SP leadership. It is unfortunate that despite the best of intentions, things are not moving forward.”

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He said his party would not merge with any party and he would start a movement to strengthen it.

After the Meerut rally, the party would launch a march on December 24, aimed at reaching every village and the campaign would go on for six months. He said he was also getting a ‘rath’ (motorised chariot) readied for his campaign.

Shivpal and nephew Akhilesh fell out politically following a protracted Yadav family feud over the control of the party when Akhilesh was UP chief minister. Akhilesh, in January 2017, became party’s national president, and Shivpal was ousted from the party.