Is Akhilesh losing grip over SP?

Two days after Samajwadi Party (SP) national president Akhilesh Yadav declared that those who wanted to quit the party were free to do so and they should not make any excuses, another SP MLC and senior leader Ashok Bajpayee resigned from the Legislative Council and Samajwadi Party.

This is the second senior leader quitting the party as well as the Council in the last four days. Earlier this week, another senior MLC Sarojini Agarwal had resigned. With this resignation, the total number of SP MLCs quitting the Council as well as the party has gone up to four. BSP MLC Thakur Jai Veer Singh had resigned a couple of days back and joined BJP.

The SP MLCs who resigned are known Mulayam loyalists. In fact, Sarojini Agarwal claimed that she was hurt the way Neta ji (as Mulayam Singh is known among his supporters) was treated by his son Akhilesh Yadav.

"I never wanted to quit SP. This party has made me legislator twice. But the way Netaji was dethroned from the party post has disturbed me. I did not want to stay in SP. I had no other option than to join the BJP because my daughter was keen to join BJP. She is a big fan of Narendra Modi," Aggarwal had told this reporter when she joined the BJP at the office of UP Tourism Minister Rita Bahuguna Joshi.

Ashok Bajpayee spoke of the same feeling. "There was no role for me in the party. The senior leaders were being neglected because we are closer to Mulayam Singh than Akhilesh Yadav. What is happening is unfortunate but we can't help," Bajpayee said after tendering his resignation letter.

A number of SP leaders believe that infighting in the family as well as in the party is far from over and it is taking its toll on the party. The way Mulayam Singh Yadav replaced Akhilesh loyalists with Shivpal Singh’s people in Lohia Trust last Tuesday has only lent credence to this. Incidentally, Akhilesh was asked to attend the meeting but he skipped it for reasons best known to him.

As Akhilesh and Mulayam have not shared a dais or attended any meeting together for the last six months, party legislators have started questioning whether Akhilesh is losing grip over the party.

A party legislator, who did not wish to be named, said it was time for Akhilesh to introspect. “Leaders are leaving the party pretty regularly. It is not a good sign. He should realise that Mulayam is still the fulcrum around which all party workers revolve. If Akhilesh cannot patch things up with his father, no one can stop disintegration of the party," he said.