Did Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav use the recent celebration of 125 years of the UP assembly to build the base for a third front?
Yes, if the allegations of the Opposition parties are to be believed.
Opposition parties, including the Bahujan Samaj Party, Congress and the Bhartiya Janata Party, have started accusing the Samajwadi Party of using the occasion for political gains and degrading the piety of the event.
“Former chief ministers, speakers and leaders of opposition from Uttar Pradesh were ignored at the function whereas Speakers from Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar, Karnataka, Haryana, and Andhra Pradesh were honoured. The presence of former UP chief ministers including Kalyan Singh, Ram Naresh Yadav and Ms Mayawati was not ensured and neither were former Speakers like Kesri Nath Tripathi, Sukhdev Rajbhar and Choudhury Sukhram present,” said state BJP president Laxmikant Bajpai.
Another BJP leader said that through the function, an attempt was made by the SP to build bridges with the possible members of a third front and project Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav as a leader of the third front.
Opposition parties are also questioning the presence of Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav on the dais with President Pranab Mukherjee during the main function.
“If it was not a party function, then other former chief ministers should have also been seated on the dais. Former chief minister Rajnath Singh was made to sit in the Governor’s gallery while Mr Mulayam Singh sat on the dais. To add insult to the injury, when revenue minister Ambica Choudhury, in his address, thanked Rajnath Singh for his presence, Mohd Azam Khan objected to this,” said a Congress MLA, Vivek Singh.
A former UP assembly speaker, who did not wish to be named, admitted that he did not attend the function because he was not ‘properly invited. “Not even a single official bothered to contact me and ask for my programme. All I got was an impersonal printed invitation,” he said.