On Eid, Mulayam sacrifices son Akhilesh at the altar of UP politics

It is not the Bharatiya Janata Party alone that holds the sobriquet of the "Hindu Divided Family". The Samajwadi Party's claim to co-sharing the title received more than a modest boost through a series of dramatic events, ironically on the day of the festival of sacrifices or Eid al-Adha celebrated as a mark of honour for Ibrahim when he offered to sacrifice his son for the love of God.

Beginning with chief minister Akhilesh Yadav's first strike in the morning when he removed the chief secretary trusted by bête noire and uncle, Shivpal Yadav, the day ended with Akhilesh stripping the elder Yadav of his most important portfolios after the uncle leveraged with supremo, Mulayam Singh Yadav, to remove him as state party chief and replace with Shivpal.

In this round, the father clearly acted against son but he has hit back. Will the fratricidal clashes end in the family or will it wipe out the clan leaving individual players to grope for crumbs of the original pie?

Undoubtedly, this is not the last word in the Yadav versus Yadav slugfest. But what are implications of what has happened and what are the likely possibilities?

To begin with, the inability of Mulayam Singh to iron out differences between Akhilesh and Shivpal is a definite bonus for its main adversaries, the Bharatiya Janata Party and Bahujan Samaj Party. While Mayawati has greatly consolidated her core constituency of Dalits and Muslims through a series of public meetings, the last of which was held in Saharanpur on Sunday; the BJP too is attempting to recover lost ground through several measures including poll pacts with smaller parties like the Rajbhar-party, Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party.

Mulayam Singh's failure to take a firm stand on the internal turmoil is symptomatic of his inability to decide the best growth route for the party - should it be old-style identity politics with a fair measure of interface with the state's corrupt and criminal underbelly or should the party opt for the modernist and pro-development face that Akhilesh wishes to pursue?

Shivpal has evidently extracted his pound of flesh by allowing unfettered circulation of tales of his imminent entry into BJP. Clearly, Mulayam Singh has been more worried than he should be, of a possible split in his party. In the years that he has been in politics, Shivpal has not displayed capacity to be an effective mass leader and instead draws his strength from his nexus with the undesirable.

While this tactic worked to the party's advantage when Mulayam Singh was at its helm, but in today's politics, there is need to look into the future and this would be possible only through programmatic policies and not merely by balancing caste equations and leveraging power brokers.

The chances of a split in the SP has been minimised with Mulayam Singh stripping Akhilesh of his organisational post but this does not bode well for the party in the elections. Without a doubt, Shivpal would have a decisive word on ticket distribution and because Akhilesh will have little say, the group loyal to him would not campaign enthusiastically and this would damage the party's prospects.

Currently, the old guard may appear numerically stronger in the party, but in the long run, Akhilesh would be a better bet to continue as its mascot because in the Yadav clan, his goodwill and public support is second only to Mulayam Singh's.

Over the next few weeks, the elder Yadav has to decide how to ensure that his brother is accommodative and not brazen in pursuing old-style politics. It is well known that Mulayam Singh continues to be driven by the ambition of being prime minister. But if he fancies a shot at the top spot in 2019 in the event of another fractured mandate, he has to ensure that the party not just returns to power in 2017 but also wins a large number of Lok Sabha seats from UP in 2019. This cannot happen if he remains a prisoner to machinations of Shivpal.

In contrast to SP, Mayawati has given firm indication of which social groups she is wooing for the 2017 polls. As a consequence of the Congress decision to project Sheila Dikshit as chief ministerial candidate and the BJP's success in wooing a section of the Brahmins, the BSP is not depending on support of the community this time. In contrast to 2017 when the BSP was voted to power, the party has put up 34 seats to Brahmin candidates while in 2007 this number stood at 90. Bahujan this time for Mayawati is clearly the Dalits and Muslims. It is a formidable combination even if one discounts that a significant portion of non-Jatav vote may not come to it. Still with Jatavs accounting for 17 per cent of the electorate and Muslims tallying 18 per cent, the BSP is the clear front runner at this stage.

Whether the scenario will remain the same or alter will depend on moves and counter-moves of all the players. But for the moment, the revival that the SP had staged in the last two months has received a severe jolt due to internal conflict. Fortunes of parties will keep altering till the polls and this will be a developing story.

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