Although the reference was to the entire new generation, the message was not lost on the people especially as it came from a person, who has been saying that he had been ''betrayed'' by none other than his own son.
 
Samajwadi Party (SP) patron Mulayam Singh Yadav has advised the youths of the new generation to serve their parents and not to ''ignore'' them.
 
''Today we find that the youths are ignoring their old parents and leave them to their fate.....this is unfortunate,'' 78-year old Mulayam said while speaking at a function in his hometown of Etawah, about 250 kilometres from here, on Monday.
 
''One gets divine blessings by serving one's parents.....the gods reward them..unfortunately the youths of today do not like it,'' he said. Mulayam also said that his father had looked after an old man in his village, who had been abandoned by his children.
 
Though Mulayam did not take his son and SP supremo Akhilesh Yadav's name while giving the advice, many in the audience took the remarks as an ''outpouring'' of a father, who had said on many occasions that he had been ''betrayed'' by his son (Akhilesh).
 
''I could have become the chief minister of UP in 2012 but I chose to give the post to Akhilesh...I should not have made him CM,'' Mulayam had remarked earlier.
 
Akhilesh had removed Mulayam as the party's national president at an emergency party meeting in the state capital a few months before the recent assembly polls in the state and got himself anointed as the party supremo.
 
Both Mulayam and his younger brother Shivpal Singh Yadav have asked Akhilesh to relinquish the party president's post and make Mulayam the supremo again. Akhilesh had said before the polls that he would hand over the party to Mulayam after the polls.