Akhilesh Yadav was re-elected as the Samajwadi Party’s national president for the next five years at the party’s national convention in Agra on Thursday, PTI reported. The announcement was made by senior party leader and Akhilesh Yadav’s aide Ram Gopal Yadav.
The party’s constitution was amended to extend the tenure of a party chief from the existing provision of three years to five years, PTI reported. The Samajwadi Party will contest the Lok Sabha elections in 2019 and the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election in 2022 under Akhilesh Yadav’s leadership.
Ahead of the national convention, the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said his father and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav had congratulated him during a phone call, NDTV reported. “I have personally invited him [to the convention] and seek his blessings again,” Akhilesh Yadav had told the news channel on September 28.
Party leaders have blamed the feud between Akhilesh Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav for the Samajwadi Party’s abysmal performance in the Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh in March, where it won only 47 seats in the 403-seats Assembly. The fractures started showing in September 2016, when Shivpal Yadav had been appointed the state party president, following which Akhilesh Yadav had relieved him of his Cabinet portfolios.
The feud had escalated in December after the former chief minister had released his own list of candidates for the polls. However, despite all this, both factions had continuously maintained that they there were no differences in the party.
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