Resentment in the ruling Samajwadi Party is gradually coming to the fore with more and more party leaders voicing their dissent on issues related to cabinet expansion and distribution of tickets.
Senior Samajwadi Party MLA Shakir Ali is upset at not being included in the recent Cabinet expansion and his supporters have been burning effigies of chief minister Akhilesh Yadav in Deoria and staging protests.
Shakir Ali, who shot to fame last year when he went horse riding on the railway platform in Deoria to celebrate his victory in elections, said that he is upset because he has not been allowed to meet Samajwadi president Mulayam Singh Yadav and has been denied a ministerial position too.
Another aspirant for a ministerial berth is Ms Shadab Fatima whose supporters also staged demonstrations at the state SP headquarters and shouted slogans against the government.
She even got some Muslim clerics to issue statements in her support. Similarly, opposition is also building up against some of the candidates announced by the Samajwadi Party for the Lok Sabha elections.
In Maharajganj, the SP candidate Kunwar Akhilesh Singh is facing stiff opposition from jailed SP leader Amarmani Tripathi who is trying to divide the party in the district on caste lines. Kunwar Akhilesh Singh has already lodged a complaint against Amar Mani Tripathi with the party high command.
Confusion continues to prevail on the Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat too. UP minister Balram Yadav who had earlier been named as candidate, withdrew from the fray after a large section of party workers demanded that Mulayam Singh’s younger son, Prateek Yadav, should be fielded from this seat.