Mulayam Singh Yadav: Tall OBC leader who wrestled his way into UP's caste politics

A wrestler in his youth, 82-year-old Samajwadi Party (SP) patron Mulayam Singh Yadav, who died after protracted illness at a hospital in Gurugram on Monday, had virtually wrestled his way to the caste-ridden politics of Uttar Pradesh and put his political opponents on the mat.

A three-time chief minister of India’s biggest state, Mulayam, popularly known among his supporters as ‘Netaji’, was one of the few leaders in the country, who managed to check the saffron surge in UP in the aftermath of the Ram Temple movement by weaving a combination of Muslims and the OBCs in the state with the help of BSP.

At a time when the saffron wave was sweeping the state in the wake of demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1991, Mulayam and the BSP had defeated the BJP in the 1993 assembly election in UP.

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Born on November 22, 1939, Mulayam, who also served as the defence minister, was known for his political acumen, was also called ‘’Maulana Mulayam’’ owing to his popularity among the Muslims.

Mulayam, who had a masters degree in political science, had also worked as a teacher at a college in his native district of Mainpuri. He began his political career by winning assembly election from Jaswant Nagar seat in Etawah district in 1967 on the ticket of Samyukta Socialist Party (SSP).

A disciple of the socialist ideologue Ram Manohar Lohia, Mulayam reaped rich electoral dividends by mobilising the ‘Yadavs’, who formed a large chunk of the OBC votes in UP and his party once virtually dominated the electoral scene in districts including Etawah, Mainpuri, Firozabad, Auraiya, Kannauj and some others.

‘’The rising political clout of the OBCs initially and the decline of the Congress and later the communal polarization in the wake of the Ram Temple movement helped Mulayam consolidate his grip on the politics in UP,’’ media analyst J.P. Shukla told DH.

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Mulayam, who was also credited with having the largest political clan in the country, chose Akhilesh Yadav, the son from his first wife, as his political successor after the SP won the assembly polls in UP in 2012 over his younger brother Shivpal Singh Yadav, who was among the founders of the party.

Akhilesh’s anointment as the chief minister of the state triggered resentment in the Yadav family which culminated in the expulsion of Shivpal and removal of Mulayam as the SP president by Akhilesh in 2016. A reluctant Mulayam accepted it as a fait accompli though Shivpal, after a brief truce, finally parted ways with Akhilesh as an ailing Mulayam watched from the sidelines.