The feud-riddled Samajwadi Party hurtled towards a split after its national president Mulayam Singh Yadav expelled on Friday Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and general secretary Ramgopal Yadav from the party for six years.
The shock move came a day after Akhilesh, the party patriarch’s son, came up with his own list of 235 candidates for next year’s assembly polls. His action was viewed as defiance to his father and his uncle, who had released the party’s official list earlier, ignoring leaders considered close to the chief minister.
“Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav doesn’t understand. Ramgopal is trying to weaken him,” Mulayam said at a press conference. “To save the party, we have expelled both Ramgopal and Akhilesh Yadav for six years…”
The expulsion put in doubt continuance of the state’s youngest chief minister. Talks of the Centre bringing the state under President’s Rule are doing the rounds. But legal experts said the chief minister’s ouster from the party didn’t mean failure of constitutional machinery in the state — often an alibi for central rule.
