The power tussle in Samajwadi Party reached a new high on Thursday when Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav declared a parallel list of candidates for Uttar Pradesh elections. The list comes just a few days after his father and party supremo released his list of 325 candidates in the 403-seat Assembly. He had also ruled out projecting Akhilesh as the Chief Ministerial candidate of the state.
The new list by Akhilesh gives tickets to 235 candidates, including 171 sitting MLAs. Many of those figuring in Mulayam’s list have been ignored by Akhilesh, just as several CM loyalists were ignored in the previous list.
Adding to the feud, Shivpal Yadav met Mulayam and released another list of 68 candidates, soon after Akhilesh finalised his list.
As per reports, the party is headed for a vertical split as Akhilesh’s candidates may contest on a separate symbol, and not the SP’s ‘Cycle’ symbol.
Before Akhilesh made the decision, he met the MLAs who had not been given tickets in Mulayam’s list. He later met Mulayam to discuss the prevailing mood in the party over the nominations.
