The Samajwadi Party has disassociated itself with the construction of a temple dedicated to SP president Mulayam Singh Yadav that is being constructed by a group of over-zealous party workers in Aligarh.
SP youth leader Rajesh Saini laid the foundation stone of the temple at Nagla Mali in Dhanipur area of Aligarh district on November 22 which was the 74th birthday of Mr Yadav.
UP chief minister and state SP president Akhilesh Yadav said on Thursday that his party was against statues or temple of living persons.
Samajwadi Party spokesperson Rajendra Choudhury said, “We are a political party and such things are not a part of our political culture. The initiative to construct the temple is a decision that is completely private and local idea of some party workers and the party has nothing to do with it. We are getting all the details and will take some decision after that.”
Rajesh Saini, the man behind the temple idea, also sounded considerably crestfallen on Thursday when he said, “I have been asked not to go ahead with my project and since I do not wish to do anything against the wishes of our leader, I am stalling the project.”
The move to construct a temple for Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav has already caused severe embarrassment to the Samajwadi Party that had, till recently, ridiculed the BSP and its leader Mayawati for installing her own statues in her lifetime.
In fact, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, during the Assembly elections, had even announced that he would pull down statues of Ms Mayawati if he was voted to power.
However, after coming to power with a comfortable majority, the Samajwadi leaders could not carry out the threat which could have led to a serious social clash in the state.
In fact, when one of Ms Mayawati’s statues in Lucknow was broken by some SP supporters in July this year, chief minister Akhilesh Yadav hurriedly got it replaced within a matter of hours.
Talking about the aborted temple project, a senior SP minister admitted on Thursday that this could have become an embarrassment for the party.
“The party has always criticized installing statues of living persons and we could have never justified a temple for a living leader. We are relived that the project has been aborted,” he said.
Incidentally, this is not the first time that a move has been made to deify Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav.
In 2006, SP leader Dayaram Prajapati had organized a ‘Yagna’ in which Mr Yadav was worshipped as the main deity in Lucknow. A few days later, Prajapati was ‘blessed’ with a ministerial position.