As senior MSY aide joins BSP, is there trouble in Samajwadi Party?

Amidst reports that Mulayam Singh Yadav has indicated his reluctance to campaign for the Samajwadi Party, in the first visible sign of trouble within the party, senior SP leader Ambika Chaudhry on Saturday joined Bahujan Samaj Party in the presence of BSP chief Mayawati.

Chaudhry, considered to be a close confidante of Mulayam Singh Yadav, is learnt to have secured the blessings of Mulayam before taking the plunge. He also indicated that there are others who are unhappy at the ‘coup’ staged by Akhilesh Yadav while ousting his father and founder of Samajwadi Party.

"I do not know about others but I could not tolerate apmaan (insult) of Neta ji. Jo apne baap ka nahi hua woh hamara kya hoga," (A leader who can go against his own father can go against others as well), said Chaudhry to this reporter.

"The behaviour of Akhilesh Yadav against his father is condemnable. I am hurt and angry the way Akhilesh has treated his father," he added.

Sources claimed that Ambika Chaudhry had obtained blessings of Mulayam Singh Yadav before joining BSP. The SP leader, according to these sources, had confided that he was not in a position to protect Chaudhry’s political interests anymore and that if Chaudhry was given an opening in any other party, he should grab it.

Welcoming Ambika Chaudhry in the party, Mayawati declared that Chaudhry would be given more respect and power in the BSP than he received in SP.

She also announced that Chaudhry, an MLC, would be fielded from Fefna assembly seat in Ballia district, a traditional seat of Chaudhry. In the 2012 assembly elections he had lost the seat to the BJP, but thereafter he was made an MLC and inducted into the ministry. During the tussle for control in the Samajwadi Party, Chaudhry sided with Mulayam Singh Yadav and his brother Shivpal and was dismissed from the ministry.

Ambika, who greeted Mayawati with a bouquet, said, "I have resigned from the primary membership of SP. I have joined the BSP to fight communal forces." Asked whether other SP leaders would follow, the reply was cryptic. "Don't know what other leaders will do,” he said.

He accused the SP of having failed to counter the growth of ‘communal forces’ in the state and said, “It failed the people”.