By Faisal Fareed, Twocircles.net
Akhilesh Yadav has been accepted as national president of Samajwadi Party and is thus entitled to use its election symbol Cycle by Election Commission.
With this, the baton has been passed in the hands of Akhilesh Yadav in SP after a turmoil of five months.
Let us see what ramifications this succession will have in UP’s politics.
1. It is now established that the Mulayam era in the Samajwadi Party is now over. The party will be governed by Akhilesh with a youth image. It has shed its rustic image of being a party of OBC and Muslims and Akhilesh has now brand value across all communities mainly youths.
2.For the first time, elections will be contested by SP on development agenda as Akhilesh has already started–#KamBoltaHain. Earlier, the elections by SP were more focussed on caste and Muslim issues.
3.All the shortcomings of Akhilesh like Muzaffarnagar Riots, hundreds of incidents of other communal violence, unfulfilled promises, incomplete projects, failure to deliver on various fronts, acting at the behest of his father and others in government, failure to even appoint ministers and officials in the government have been relegated to the background. The only thing visible and shown to the people is Akhilesh—the conqueror who has won a battle and got Cycle election symbol.
4.The new scenario will leave little bargaining space for Muslims as they are nowhere in the scene. They are left to tow the line behind new SP as it has been painted that Akhilesh is the winner.
5. An alliance will be formed soon with Congress and RLD which will further confuse the Muslim voters. It is simple that with Akhilesh who had an upper hand getting the cycle and forming an alliance will be a strong option for Muslims to vote for SP. And it is naive to say that Mayawati will not get any Muslim vote. It means that two equally strong options before Muslims will result in the absolute division of votes. If Mulayam had got the cycle, the SP groups including Akhilesh would have been weaker and BSP would have got an upper hand by getting maximum share of Muslim votes.
6. On a personal front, Akhilesh now has an added advantage. He is the sole face of SP within his family. It is too early to say if he will harm the interest of those who were against him. In the end, blood is thicker than water; the prosperous Yadav family will continue to flourish as evident when Akhilesh fielded one more member from his clan in Vidhan Sabha elections. But a picture will be painted where it will be shown that Akhilesh is against some family members but in the long run, it will benefit everyone, including Amar Singh.
So, it is time to rejoice for Mulayam’s family as the succession has been done with no oppositions. Either you are with Akhilesh or with Mulayam and in the end, Mulayam is with Akhilesh.