As the preparation window for the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections keeps getting shorter, the feud between Akhilesh Yadav and CM Yogi is getting more bitter. However, the current tussle between both leaders traces its history back to Mulayam Singh’s alleged use of legal machinery to torture Yogi Adityanath.
Income Tax department raids Akhilesh Yadav’s aides
In a sensational development, the Income Tax Department has conducted raids on the premises of various aides of Akhilesh Yadav. In its attempt to nab suspected tax evaders, the tax department launched its search operation at residences of Rajeev Rai (Samajwadi Party’s national secretary and spokesperson) in Mau; Manoj Yadav (group promoter of RCL) in Mainpuri, and Jainendra Yadav, an electrician turned OSD of SP chief.
Akhilesh Yadav alleges political malaise
Though details of search operations are still not out in the public domain, Akhilesh Yadav has started political mudslinging on the raids. SP Chief alleged that BJP was using the I-T department to discourage his party members. According to Akhilesh, BJP knows that SP will win the election, and this is why they are jittered. He then went on to declare that even if ED and CBI raid his party’s well-wishers, the speed of the cycle (his party’s election symbol) will not slow down.
Read more: SP and Akhilesh: The ego of an underachiever and the complete demolition of a 29-year-old party
Meanwhile, CM Yogi has come out in support of the I-T department’s raids on Akhilesh’s aides. He totally decried any rumours about the political angle involved in the raids. Citing that some of SP leaders’ wealth had increased by more than 200 times, Shri Yogi said, “I saw yesterday the Samajwadi Party was getting pained at Income Tax raids. So, I asked someone, why? The journalist replied ‘chor ki dadhi mein tinka’ (a guilty conscience needs no accuser). Can anyone imagine how someone’s wealth grows 200 times in five years?” Firebrand Chief Minister then added that if SP’s government was there in the state, there would have been no actions against criminals active in the state.
Read more: Yogi’s epic takedown of Akhilesh Yadav is both hilarious and factual
Akhilesh Yadav’s is fearing that Yogi may avenge Mulayam’s mistreatment from him
Akhilesh Yadav’s apprehensions about I-T raids being a political vendetta by Yogi Adityanath stems from his own father Mulayam Singh Yadav‘s treatment towards Yogi Adityanath in the 2000s.
Yogi Adityanath, a lifelong student of Hath Yoga tasted political success quite early in his life. He was elected as Gorakhpur MP at quite a young age of 26. Instead of being complacent, Yogi started his own Youth wing, Hindu Yuva Vahini. The organisation mainly focused on the welfare of the people in Eastern Uttar Pradesh. Slowly, it started to find faults in the government’s policies and their implementation. One of the main problems harming locals’ interests was anti-India activities on Indo-Nepal borders. These discrepancies were reported to Yogi as well.
Yogi Adityanath’s campaign against anti-national elements did not bode well for Mulayam
After years of careful deliberations, Yogi Adityanath and his team concluded that Nepali Maoists and Indian leftists are in amalgamation. He decided to galvanise the people of UP to pressurise Mulayam Singh’s Government to act against anti-national elements. Tensions were up in the state and then suddenly in 2007 a riot took place in Gorakhpur. When Yogi Adityanath used the democratic route of Dharna against the riots, he was arrested by Mulayam Singh Yadav’s government for disrupting the peace. In spite of being one of the most popular MPs, Yogi had to spend 11 days in Gorakhpur Jail.
Later, Yogi Adityanath’s tears rolled down in Parliament while describing his ordeals under Mulayam Singh Yadav’s government. In his statement, he castigated the SP government for framing him under false charges. Pointing out that he was being harassed by Mulayam Singh Yadav’s government for speaking against corruption and ISI activities on the Indo-Nepal border; Yogi had said that those cases in which he has been given clean chit by CBI-CID are also being opened against him.
Yogi never took political differences at personal level
However, in spite of being framed by Mulayam Singh Yadav, Yogi Adityanath always wished well for the veteran leader. Yogi was one of the first politicians to visit Mulayam after he returned from his medical treatment from Delhi. Meanwhile, Mulayam has publicly stated that his own son Akhilesh has not been kind to him and has even humiliated him in the past.
Read more: Mulayam disgruntled after Akhilesh– Mayawati political alliance, lashes out at son
Agencies like CBI, ED, I-T department are politically neutral. Rather than alleging political vendetta, Akhilesh should be pondering on why his colleagues were raided in the first place? His fear of vendetta is valid only when he truly believes that Mulayam Singh’s jailing of Yogi Adityanath was motivated by politics.