Shivpal Yadav, Samajwadi Party MLA from Uttar Pradesh’s Jaswantnagar and estranged uncle of party president Akhilesh Yadav, is likely to start his own political party next month. An SP leader familiar with the developments said Shivpal had offered the post of national president of his proposed party to his elder brother and Samajwadi Party patriarch, Mulayam Singh Yadav, which he turned down. On 1 September, Shivpal had announced that the Morcha would contest all 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Two days later, he dropped ‘senior Samajwadi Party leader’ from his Facebook and Twitter accounts and called himself a ‘leader of Samajwadi Secular Morcha’ and member of the UP legislature from Jaswant Nagar. A day after Shivpal announced the Morcha, Mulayam visited the SP headquarters in Lucknow and addressed the party workers.

Source: Hindustan Times September 07, 2018 18:11 UTC