Express News Service
LUCKNOW: Amid the rift with Samajwadi Party chief and nephew Akhilesh Yadav, Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia (PSP-L) chief Shivpal Yadav reached out to UP CM Yogi Adityanath paying him a visit at his official residence triggering speculation of realignment of political forces here on Wednesday evening.
Shivpal, who is an MLA from Jaswantnagar in Etawah on SP symbol, however, called it a courtesy call meant to greet Yogi on his victory and return to power in UP.
Earlier, in the day, Shivpal had reached Assembly where he was administered the oath of house as an MLA by the newly-appointed Speaker Satish Mahana.
Coming out after the 20-minute meeting with Yogi, when the media persons asked Shivpal Yadav about his plans to join the BJP, he did not refute the possibility it saying that he had already taken the oath of the house and did not want to say more than that for now.
The chasm in the first family of Samjawadi Party widened on Tuesday when Shivpal Yadav boycotted the meeting of allies called by Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow.
In fact, Shivpal has been sulking since he was not invited to SP legislative party meeting in which Akhilesh was elected SPLP leader on Saturday. He had openly expressed his discontent over not being invited to SPLP meeting. The sources close to Shivpal Yadav claimed that the PSP-L chief wanted a bigger role in SP after he contested the recently concluded Assembly elections on SP symbol from Jaswantnagar sacrificing his own party.
After Shivpal’s outburst, the SP issued a clarification saying that none of the allies were called to the meeting and Shivpal too was an ally. Whereas Shivpal contended that he was an SP MLA who contested and won the Jaswantnagar seat on SP symbol.
In fact, Shivpal has been nurturing the discontent since his party was not spared even a single seat to contest in the recently concluded elections.
Even during the elections, Shivpal had expressed his chagrin by saying that he agreed to contest on SP symbols only to keep Mulayam Singh Yadav’s words.
The PSPL sources claimed that during his recent Etawah visit, Shivpal consulted his supporters about his future course of action after the “disrespect” shown to him by SP chief.
It is believed that he got the full support of his supporters who promised to stand by him unconditionally.
It may be recalled that Akhilesh had reached out to Shivpal ahead of Assembly elections offering him to contest the polls on SP symbol from Jaswantnagar and promising him the respect and honour as per his stature.
