Factionalism is the natural character of socialists and Samajwadi Party is not an exception. All socialists remained divided, most of the time in the Indian History. However, they appeared almost united in UP for around two decades under the banner of Samajwadi Party and leadership of Mulayamsingh Yadav. But after around one year of polls of 2012, when his son Akhilesh Yadav was assigned to lead the state government and Mulayam Singh was heading the party as National President, in 2013 the contend began and factionalism grew, day by day, inside the party and also in the functioning of government.

The Root Cause of Turmoil 

The root cause of growth of factionalism and feud leading to present turmoil is the ‘Ego’ of senior leaders being elders and of the rapidly rising young leader, being in power and gaining popularity faster than others. In addition to the ‘conflicting egos’, this is also the fact of common human nature that when one does not get ‘that’ he (or she) has assumed as his ‘right’ or he is sure to to get ‘that’, then he retaliate fiercely. This happened with all the main characters of the story notably, Shivpal Singh, Akhilesh Yadav, Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh. How it happened? Let’s see this phenomena lying behind the story of the internal conflict of Samajwadi Party.

Since, Mulayamsingh, Shivpal Singh and Amarsingh, when became agreed to offer the thrown of the state to Akhilesh, making him CM in 2012, they all were having the notion that the comparatively new entrant Akhilesh is like a chap of their own family; so they were expecting that, Akhilesh will act like the young face of the party and government and he will work in line with their wishes. They also expected that they will also have enough power, indirectly on his name and govt. officials will obey them, regarding as the CM’s elders.

How the expectations of elders were dissolved 

But, this notion of the three was proven substantially wrong, not only from the government officials but also from Akhilesh yadav himself. For the officials, there is an obvious difference between the actual CM and ‘his elders’, especially when the so-called ‘chap of family’ is not like a puppet but has enough intelligence and leadership qualities.

So, the difference was felt by these elders in many respects and on many occasions. The realization of this unexpected and unpleasant experience, made them to think that they need to change the balance of power inside the party and thereby in the next possible government. In other words, they together formed a strategy for cutting the growing wings of Akhilesh; may be not like ‘scripted’ or ‘consciously planned’ course of actions, but it was their hidden strategy.  

Therefore, they first formed one more power center in the state unit of the party by positioning Shivpal Singh as the state party president just 4 months ago. Then they opted for some tie-ups and inclusions of the tainted leaders; ignoring the opinion of Akhilesh. But then, the crucial point of feud come-up when Shivpal made his own list of candidates for the ensuing polls ignoring the CM again, so Akhilesh had to give his different list to the National President Mulayam Singh. Since, Mulayam was not only inclined but he was having similar intentions as Shivpal, so he accepted Shivpal’s list almost fully. 

Real happenings have refuted hypothesis of Drama or ‘Noora-Kushti’

Now, the rest of the development of the events of this story is well known and all the events confirm our basic assumptions that the whole phenomena is the result of ‘conflict of egos’ and unexpectedly independent behaviour of Akhilesh Yadav by the three elders. This whole description also refutes, the hypothesis that, the whole course of events is a DRAMA, scripted by the veteran leader of the party. This hypothesis of Drama or ‘Noora-Kushti’ was put forward by many opposing party leaders especially belonging to BJP.

The hypothesis of ‘woman hand’ also doesn’t have much weight

Another hypothetical angle of the story was created by one SP leader and Akhilesh supporter Udayveer Singh, who blamed Mulayam’s second wife i.e. step mother of Akhilesh for conspiring and causing the feud. In my view, this blame against a lady of traditional Yadav family also does not have much sense; since, all the major characters of the family have their own discretionary powers and themselves are responsible for all their actions. Mulayam’s wife at the most influence directly Mulayam Singh only and not others and if blame is only attached to her, it means that we are assuming that only Mulayam’s actions & decisions are responsible for the crisis; but it is evident that all the main male characters of story share the responsibility.

Moreover, Mulayam is a person with very self-decisive and egoist nature, so he may listen and give weight to whatever his wife might have said to him; but he is used to have own decisions and give weight to the words of Amarsingh and Shivpal more than anyone else. Therefore, the highest responsibility of the crisis lies over Mulayam Singh himself.         

* Hariprakash ‘Visant’

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