Lucknow: The controversy surrounding the Samajwadi Party (SP) does not seem to die. Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on Saturday said he would have become the Prime Minister if he had made his brother Shivpal Yadav the chief minister in 2012 instead of his son Akhilesh.
According to reports, Singh questioned Akhilesh’s contribution towards the party’s success in Uttar Pradesh and said SP would have won 30-35 seats had he made Shivpal the chief minister.
"What happened despite his being the CM? Only five members from the family won. If I had listened to Shivpal, we would have won 30-35 seats and I would have been the PM."
"If Akhilesh is unhappy with Shivpal because of this (appointment of the latter as the SP state chief), he should remember that people have accepted him as CM because he is my son. He never had any individual standing in politics," Mulayam told SP workers at the party headquarters.
According to a report in Hindustan Times, Singh said Shivpal had in 2012 told him to become the chief minister for the fourth term and that “Akhilesh must be crowned only after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Akhilesh has been miffed with Shivpal ever since.”
Singh lashed out at his son, saying he was humiliated when the party won just five seats in 2014 when Akhilesh was the CM, adding, “Had I not agreed, he would have not become the CM ever.”
Although he appreciated Akhilesh for the good work SP did under his leadership, he said most of it just consisted of carrying forward the work his government did. Singh said he and Shivpal had worked very hard, slept in huts, went to jail, faced lathi-charges to bring the party up.
