Lucknow: With the latest ‘son rise’ in the Samajwadi Party, five family members of late founder Mulayam Singh Yadav are now contesting the Lok Sabha (LS) elections. As Mulayam’s youngest brother Shivpal Yadav secured son Aditya Yadav his first LS ticket from the Budaun seat, the party found itself facing the ‘parivaarvad’ jibe.
In 2019, Mulayam and five of his family members had contested the LS elections from Mainpuri, Azamgarh, Firozabad, Budaun, and Kannauj. Shivpal Yadav had then fought, and lost, from Firozabad on a ticket of Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia (PSP-L), which he floated in 2018 after parting ways with nephew Akhilesh Yadav. He is back in the SP fold now.
In the 2019 election, Mulayam Singh Yadav had contested from Mainpuri, SP chief Akhilesh from Azamgarh, his wife Dimple Yadav from Kannauj, and two of his cousins — Akshay Yadav and Dharmendra Yadav — from Firozabad and Budaun, respectively.
Akshay Yadav is the son of Mulayam’s cousin and SP secretary-general Ram Gopal Yadav and Dharmendra Yadav is the son of Mulayam’s other younger brother Abhay Ram Yadav. Shivpal had fought the election against nephew Akshay from Firozabad — a seat that the BJP managed to win due to the division of votes between the two Yadavs.
Cut to 2024, five members are contesting the election, with Shivpal’s son Aditya Yadav the latest family member to enter the poll fray earlier this month. On Sunday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah took aim at Akhilesh, asking whether the SP chief could not find any Yadav outside his family to give tickets.
This time, Akhilesh is contesting from Kannauj, Dharmendra from Azamgarh, Dimple from Mainpuri, Akshay from Firozabad, and Aditya from Budaun.
The 35-year-old Aditya, who had held the post of the PSP-L general secretary till it merged with the SP in December 2022, replaced his father Shivpal as the SP’s Budaun candidate. The party’s decision came following an SP workers’ conference proposing Aditya as the Budaun candidate after Shivpal got the ticket in February when former Budaun MP Dharmendra moved to Azamgarh to contest from there. Shivpal, after the conference, said that Aditya would fight from Budaun in his place on “demand from the youth”.
Speaking to ThePrint, a senior SP leader said Shivpal always wanted to settle his son in politics — he had sought an SP ticket for his son in the 2022 assembly elections but was denied.
“Shivpal had been seeking a ticket for his son for quite some time but was denied. Before the 2022 assembly polls, he again raised the demand. But, the SP chief asked Shivpal to fight from his traditional Jaswantnagar seat on the SP symbol. This time, after Shivpal started visiting Azamgarh, Dharmendra was shifted there, and Shivpal asked to fight from Budaun. But Shivpal did not want to contest from Budaun and proposed that his son fight instead,” the former SP leader further said.
The change was also because if Shivpal contested from Budaun, it would have necessitated a bypoll in the Jaswantnagar assembly, which is his stronghold. “Fielding Aditya from Budaun helps Shivpal retain his traditional assembly seat, along with a chance to keep Budaun Lok Sabha with his family,” the leader said.
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Who is Aditya Yadav
With Aditya set to contest, this is the fifth ‘son-rise’ in the SP first family.
Sons of several Mulayam family leaders have jumped into the political fray and become MPs. These include Akhilesh, who was earlier the UP CM; Akshay, who was the Firozabad MP; Dharmendra, who was the Budaun MP; and Akhilesh’s nephew Tej Pratap Yadav, who won the Mainpuri bypoll after his granduncle Mulayam vacated the seat in 2014.
Tej Pratap is the son of Ranveer Singh Yadav, who had started the Saifai Mahotsav, which later became a symbol of the Yadav family’s dominance in the Etawah region. Ranveer, the son of Mulayam’s late elder brother Ratan Singh Yadav, died in November 2002, and his wife, Mridula Yadav, is currently a member of the Saifai Block Development Council (BDC).
Tej Pratap is married to former Bihar CM and RJD chief Lalu Yadav’s daughter Raj Lakshmi.
Aditya’s debut in electoral politics was in 2010 when he fought the district panchayat poll from Jaswantnagar but lost to a BSP candidate.
A La Martiniere alumnus and BBA from Lucknow University, where he then completed his Master’s in tourism administration, Aditya was involved in cooperative politics in Etawah and Lucknow.
Aditya is a member of the board of the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA), an international body which, according to its website, “works for the interests and success of cooperatives”.
He is also a member of the board of the Indian Farmers Fertilisers Cooperative Limited (IFFCO), the world’s largest fertiliser cooperative. Aditya became the “youngest member of the board of IFFCO and the youngest chairperson of the Uttar Pradesh Cooperative Federation”, according to the website.
In December 2016, when the SP was in turmoil due to the uncle Shivpal-nephew Akhilesh fued, Shivpal controversially made Aditya pre-maturely resign from the post of the chairman of UP State Cooperative Federation and then got him re-elected unanimously two days later, in effect, making him immune to the SP’s defeat in the 2017 UP elections and increasing his tenure for five years. The federation has assets across UP.
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‘Fight with BJP & administration’
Speaking with ThePrint, Aditya said that his father has worked hard on the ground, admitting that filling his shoes will not be easy.
Recounting Shivpal’s poll management in the Ghosi bypolls, which the SP won last year, Aditya said his party fought the BJP, as well as the administration, in that bypoll, and that he expected a similar situation in the Budaun Lok Sabha polls.
“Like we defeated the BJP in the Ghosi bypoll, we will win Budaun too. We won the seat in 2019, and I am (being) able to connect with people on the ground. (But) There is a possibility of dishonesty this time, too,” he said.
Budaun has sent an SP MP to the Parliament six times between 1998 and 2014. Its caste matrix has traditionally tilted the balance in SP’s favour as it has over four lakh Yadav voters, 3.5 lakh Muslims, 1.45 lakh Dalits, while non-Yadav OBCs, Vaishyas and Brahmins are nearly 2.5 lakh each.
In 2019, however, BJP’s Sanghmitra Maurya unseated SP’s Dharmendra Yadav as Budaun MP. But, this time, the BJP has replaced Sanghmitra with Durvijay Shakya, an old party horse, as its candidate, while the BSP has fielded Muslim Khan.
While Shakya has been attacking the SP for ‘parivaarvad’, BSP’s Khan is leading a muted campaign in the constituency.
The March double murder of two children, Ayush and Ahaan, by a barber in the constituency’s Civil Lines area has given rise to allegations of polarisation in the area.
While the BJP’s Sanghmitra Maurya has alleged Shivpal’s “hand behind the murder”, the latter has slammed the BJP, saying it was “behind creating riots and communal tension in the area”.
Aditya told ThePrint that the polarisation narrative is being propagated by “vested interests due to an agenda”.
“Hindu-Muslim rift is being created by those who are propagating their agenda. No one is discussing unemployment and farmers’ issues. Sugarcane farmers have not received their payments, farmers have been immersed in debt, and stray cattle are a huge issue. People are getting electricity only for six hours in some areas,” he said.
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Family first
The entry of the fifth Yadav family member in the poll fray has attracted attacks from ruling party leaders such as Amit Shah.
“..Mulayam Singh became the CM, then his son became the CM, and after his death, his daughter-in-law became the MP. This time, Akhilesh Yadav is fighting from Kannauj, Dimple Yadav from Mainpuri, Akshay Yadav from Firozabad, Aditya Yadav from Budaun, and Dharmendra Yadav from Azamgarh. I want to ask Akhilesh Yadav—don’t you find other ‘Yadavs’ but from your family?” said Shah.
Even former SP leaders, who have parted ways with the party, targeted Akhilesh for fielding only family members from the Yadav community.
“They have been accused of resorting to dynastic politics. So many workers and supporters from the Yadav community could have been given tickets. They have proved the allegations of ‘parivaarvad’ levelled against them are true,” P.D. Tiwari, former SP state secretary, who left the party last year and floated the Swabhiman Samajwadi Morcha, told ThePrint.
Pradeep Tiwari of the Morcha said that on the Khalilabad seat that late MP Bhal Chandra Yadav represented twice, the party could have fielded a member of the Yadav community who is not a part of the Mulayam Singh Yadav family but chose not to.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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