JOIN USDissension brews within SP
Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav may be nurturing prime ministerial ambitions and eying a huge win in the politically crucial state of UP in the next Lok Sabha polls in 2014, but growing dissension within his own party may prove to be a bigger hurdle than even the opposition parties.
The recent outbursts of at least two SP legislators and a senior minister against the functioning of their own government has sent alarm bells ringing within the SP leadership, which is now mulling to issue strict instructions to party leaders not to air their grievances in public.
The SP leaders not only charged the state government with failing on law and order, but also alleged that officials were “corrupt” and they did not pay any heed to recommendations made by them.
The alarmed SP leadership on Friday expelled party legislator from Bidhuna Pramod Gupta, who was related to Mulayam Singh Yadav, after he said that the law and order situation in the state was very poor. He had also threatened to resign from his membership of the Assembly if the situation did not improve in the near future. He had said that goonda elements were ruling the roost in the state.
Earlier, another SP legislator from Ballia district Mohammed Ziauddin Rizvi had alleged that corruption was rampant in the SP regime. “Officials do not do any work without taking money,” Rizvi had said, and threatened to hold demonstrations to register his protest over the functioning of officials.
Senior minister Azam Khan had also alleged that police in the state were “totally corrupt”. He had alleged that police had freed a person after taking bribe.
“Such remarks certainly send a negative message about the SP government in the state, and they should be curbed at all costs,” a senior SP leader here told Deccan Herald.
He said that the SP leadership is now mulling to issue strict instruction to party leaders and functionaries not to make comments against their own government. “Leaders are free to raise the issues on the party fora but not in public,” said the SP leader.