The senior leader of Samajwadi party Shivpal Yadav announced his new party “Secular Morcha” which means “unconsecrated rally”. Shivpal chose his elder brother and supremo of Samajwadi party Mulayam Singh Yadav as the chief of his newly emerged Secular morcha party. This decision has been noticed after the family political controversy which occurred during Uttar Pradesh general assembly elections. Shivpal’s motive is to bring all the scattered “socialist and secular people under one roof”. He stated that his party would work to strengthen the SP and no strategy had yet been formed on fighting elections. Secular morcha party is one of the controversial split of Samajwadi Party.
Samajwadi political split
Yadav family has been divided into two feuding groups since Akhilesh Yadav became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. One of the groups is led by him with the support of his father’s cousin, Ram Gopal Yadav. The rival group is led by Mulayam Singh Yadav and supported by his brother Shivpal Singh Yadav and friend, Amar Singh. In the planning of campaign for Uttar Pradesh elections, Akhilesh Yadav has fired his uncle twice from his cabinet as it was seen by many as a direct challenge to his father Mulayam Singh Yadav, who has steadily supported his younger brother Shivpal over him.
This Battle in the family fired up when Akhilesh Yadav released a parallel list of 235 candidates for 2017 Uttar Pradesh election. While Mulayam Singh Yadav and Shivpal Singh Yadav already has released the list of 325 candidates few days before which the latter, led to the dismissal of CM Akhilesh Yadav and his cousin Uncle Ram Gopal Yadav. On 30 December 2016, Mulayam Singh Yadav expelled them from the party for six years on the grounds of indiscipline and after 24 hours they took back Akhilesh in the party then Ram Gopal call a national meet and made Akhilesh a national president of the party.
Mulayam and Akhilesh fought on Bicycle party symbol. Both the factions put forth their points of view to stake claim over the cycle symbol in front of Election Commission. Then Election Commission gave the cycle symbol to Akhilesh Yadav as he got the support of 200 members out of 229. Mulayam was against collaboration with Congress while Akhilesh took the decision to go with Congress and leave 105 seats for Congress. During the election campaign, Mulayam announced that they will launch a new party. After all, this political controversy Samajwadi party on 11 March just got 45 seats which were one of the biggest loss.
But Is this newly formed party “Secular morcha” will secure the future of the Samajwadi party?It’s difficult to answer this question as the incumbent government in Uttar Pradesh is BJP(Bharatiya Janta Party) which got 60% majority in India. Although Samajwadi Party ruling from last two eras and in 2017 they lose because of anti-incumbency factor and family political controversy. Now, Secular Morcha came up with some new strategies which may secure the future of the Samajwadi party.
Now the question is “Will Secular morcha survive as long as the Samajwadi party?”
Recurrence of splits in Samajwadi politics has been a norm rather than an exception in India. Secular Morcha is only the part of the Samajwadi party with different strategies, motive and identity. So this is the new strategy of the Samajwadi party to get through elections because if Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son Akhilesh would fight elections together then winning chances would be less they may not win more than 75 seats in the 404 member UP Assembly. And if this new political outfit enters into a “mahagathbandhan” with the Congress and other smaller parties then Uttar Pradesh politics would get a turn as Bihar elections.
