In a bid to end the ongoing conflict between his son, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, and his younger brother Shivpal Yadav, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on Wednesday announced 325 candidates for the upcoming state assembly polls. Speaking to reporters, Mulayam said names of the remaining 78 candidates would be announced soon.
The SP chief announced his own list of candidates, after both Shivpal Yadav, who is the the state president of the party, and Akhilesh Yadav came up with their separate lists of candidates, which vindicated that conflict still persists between the uncle and the nephew over ticket distribution.
While announcing the names of candidates, Mulayam ruled out any poll alliance with the Congress, and said: “The party would contest polls alone.”
Interestingly, Mulayam’s list does not have the name of Akhilesh Yadav. The SP chief said that the party would not project any chief ministerial candidate, but Akhilesh was free to contest from wherever he wanted. The party has denied ticket to 53 sitting MLAs which include some prominent names like Pawan Pandey and Arvind Singh Gope who are close to Akhilesh.
In place of Arvind Singh, the SP chief has preferred Rakesh Verma, son of Beni Prasad Verma. The party decided to field 176 sitting MLAs. Mulayam said that a total of 4200 candidates had applied for tickets.
A few days ago Shivpal Yadav and Akhilesh had come up with their separate lists of candidates. Shivpal’s list included some tainted names like Amanmani Tripathi and Atiq Ahamed over whom Akhilesh had obejections.
After the issuance of the new list, Akhilesh said that he would talk to the party president about those MLAs who have been denied tickets.
