The crisis in the Samajwadi Party is being played out in public now.
Soon after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav sacked his uncle Shivpal Yadav and three other members from his cabinet, the outgoing senior leader said that he would not work the Samajwadi Party if his nephew was still the CM after the 2017 UP elections. It is also being suggested that the current crisis could nudge the UP chief minister to consider ties with the Congress.
On Monday, this increasingly acrimonious family-cum-political fight was on full display in front of a crowd of 500 supporters, chiefs and block leaders. Mulayam Singh Yadav came down hard on his son and actually made a comparison with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "Look at Modi, he has become PM with sheer hard work. He comes from a poor family and keeps claiming that he can't live without his mother. He hasn't left his mother even today."
And then it got worse.
"Amar Singh got it written about me that I am Aurangzeb and netaji is Shah Jehan," Akhilesh Yadav says in the video above. "And he wrote it on the front page of the Times of India...." At this point the mike is snatched from his hands by Shivpal Yadav who says, "These are lies. The chief minister is lying."
Cut to slogans. And an impending breakdown.
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