Mulayam Singh Yadav: A crafty politician, and a lifelong kingmaker

Mulayam Singh Death: The famous Socialist movement of Jayprakash Narayan changed the dynamics of Indian politics forever. Several young Turks entered into mainstream politics and rose to political prominence. Some even became the central pillar of politics in their respective states. Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar are some of the prominent politicians whose political roots can be traced with the JP Andolan aka Sampoorna Kranti. But as they say, change is the only constant. Around five decades of that fateful movement, the ‘socialist’ leaders have passed their prime.

Mulayam Singh Death: End of an Era

After battling for life for several months, Former UP CM Mulayam Singh Yadav passed away this morning at Medanta Hospital, Gurugram. His son and Former UP CM Akhilesh Yadav informed about his father’s demise through Samajwadi Party’s official Twitter account.

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The Samajwadi founder Mulayam Singh Yadav was admitted to Medanta Hospital on August 22. Due to his deteriorating health condition, he was admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) at the hospital on October 2. For the past few days, he was on life-saving drugs and ventilator. He was being treated by a “comprehensive team of specialists”. As per Medanta Hospital, the former UP CM had serious lung and kidney issues. He was also facing difficulties in breathing and went through dialysis for his kidney problems. Due to his various health-related ailments for the past three years, he had to reduce his public appearance and step back from active politics.

PM Narendra Modi made several tweets on the death of the veteran leader Mulayam Singh Yadav. He remembered the contribution and political journey of SP founder Yadav.

Also Read: Veteran Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav endorses PM Modi’s second term

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Early life, family of SP Patriarch

He was born to Murti Devi and Sughar Singh Yadav on 22 November 1939 in Saifai, Uttar Pradesh. He had three degrees in political science – a B.A. degree from Karm Kshetra Post Graduate College in Etawah, a B.T. from A. K. College in Shikohabad, and an M.A. from B. R. College, Agra University.

SP founder had married twice. His first wife, Malti Devi was in a vegetative state from 1974. The duo had one child, Akhilesh Yadav who later went on to become the Chief Minister of UP. His wife, Malti Devi breathed her last in May 2003.

He admitted his relationship with Sadhana Gupta in February 2007, in the Supreme Court. The couple had a son named Prateek Yadav, husband of Aparna Bisht Yadav who later joined BJP in 2022. Yadav’s second wife, Sadhana Gupta died in July 2022 after a brief illness.

Before making an entry into active politics, he had a keen intrest wrestling. He would often skip school examinations to participate in wrestling matches. On 26th June 1960, Damodar Swaroop came to attend Kavi Sammelan held in the Jain Inter College of Karhal. Swaroop was one of the famous rebel poets of that time. When the rebel poet started his poem ‘Delhi Ki Gaddi Savdhaan’, the policemen present there stopped him from making anti-government poetry. After some time, a young man came out from the audience and slammed the Policeman. He was none other than the young wrestler Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Political Journey of SP founder

In politics, he was groomed by socialist leaders Ram Manohar Lohia and Raj Narain. In 1967, he was first elected to the state Legislative Assembly. Later, he was elected to the UP legislative assembly ten times. During the Emergency, he was arrested and remained in custody for 19 months. In 1977, he became the state minister for the first time. In 1980, he became the President of the Lok Dal in Uttar Pradesh. Later, the party merged with Janata Dal. In 1982, he was elected as the leader of the opposition in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council. After the split in Lok Dal party, he launched the Krantikari Morcha party.

He became the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh for the first time in 1989. Later, in 1992, he founded the Samajwadi Party which became one of the major political forces in the state till date.

In his long political career, he served as the state’s chief minister thrice – from 1989-1991, 1993-1995 and 2003-2007. He also held the post of Union Defence Minister from 1996-1998. He had been elected seven times as Lok Sabha MP. Currently, he was the Member of Parliament from the Mainpuri constituency. He was fondly called as Netaji among the political circle. The former wrestler made it big in politics and his political imprint seems to remain intact for a long time to come.

At several occasions, he demonstrated his political prowess and forged alliances that were considered to be near to impossible tasks. During the 1993 poll battle, Ram mandir Andolan was at its peak. BJP was a strong force in the state and had blurred the caste politics. Contemplating the changed scenario, Mulayam Singh forged an unlikely alliance with his arch-rival Kanshiram. The SP-BSP alliance sailed the election comfortably. It stamped the practicability of alliances, even with arch nemesis.

However, it is the leadership that has to consolidate the strengths of both parties of the alliance. For example, Akhilesh Yadav had the same arithmetic during the 2017 and 2019 elections but he failed miserably.

Even at the national level, he forged unlikely alliances and proved to be the saviour for Congress’ UPA on several occasions. The most prominent being the saviour role during the nuclear deal crises. Samajwadi Party supported UPA when the left parties were threatening Dr Manmohan Singh to topple his government.

However, he is also credited for cementing the casteist and appeasement politics in the state. During his reign, law and order was always a low hanging fruit for the opposition and dethrone SP on that plank. Under his rule, many mafias rocked the politics of Purvanchal including the dreaded mafias like Mukhtar Ansari and Atique Ahmed.

Controversies

The most notorious controversy in his six decades long political career is the indiscriminate firing on Kar Sevaks on the day of Bhoomi Pooja in Ayodhya. In 1989, he was the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and the nation was rocked by Mandal-Kamandal politics. VHP and Bajrang Dal had announced karseva for the demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. On October 30, 1990, he ordered the police officers to open fire and stop karsevaks at all costs. Two days later, On 2nd of November, karsevaks thronged Hanuman Garhi in thousands. CM Mulayam yet again ordered police to open fire. Countless karsevaks lost their lives in the indiscriminate firing by the police. That decision alone stamped his pro-minority image which gave him political mileage for a long time. Later too, he refused to repent for that horrific and indiscriminate misuse of power.

Unfortunately, it was not the only case of him ordering police to open indiscriminate firing on crowds. On 2nd of October, 1994, activists demanding a separate state of Uttarakhand were marching towards Delhi to stage a protest in Raj Ghat in Delhi. Then UP CM Mulayam Singh was opposed to the idea of a separate state of Uttarakhand. When the activists reached Rampur Tiraha (crossing) in Muzaffarnagar district, Police opened indiscriminate fire on the unarmed activists claiming lives of many. It was alleged that women were physically assaulted and raped during the carnage. This horrific case is known as the Rampur Tiraha indiscriminate firing case.

His political legacy was also tarnished by the infamous ‘guest house episode’. On 1st of June, 1995, the then CM Mulayam was informed that BSP had pulled its support from the coalition government. Top SP leadership had decided to break the BSP to save its government. On the following day, on 2nd of June, some SP MLAs and other leaders reached the State Guest House in Lucknow, where Mayawati was housed. She was the closest aide of Kanshi Ram and then general secretary of the BSP. She was holding a meeting with her MLAs to discuss their next step.

In its June 3rd edition, The Indian Express said, “The Samajwadi Party workers, armed with rifles and weapons, barged into a meeting room of the BSP workers… and assaulted the BSP legislators, ‘kidnapping’ some of them. Senior BSP leaders, including Ms Mayavati, slipped into a suite reserved for her in the guest house.

After the 2012 horrific Delhi gang rape case, the country was in a deep state of dismay and disbelief. People thronged streets asking death penalty to perpetrators of heinous crimes of rape. Amid massive public pressure, the Parliament made punishment for heinous crimes of rape a capital offence. Shamefully, the SP veteran Netaji made a deplorable statement. He opposed the move to amend the law and made the statement “notorious, “Boys will be boys. Boys commit mistakes” remarks.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2014 lambasted this destructive attitude of ‘Boys will be boys’.

Later, on 19 August 2015, he made another shocking and reprehensible remark. He remarked that gang-rapes are impractical and rape-victims tend to lie. At that time, the Judicial Magistrate of Mahoba district court summoned him for his disgraceful remarks.

However, the SP veteran who was one of the biggest mass leaders in the history of state politics, lost power even in his own political party. Firstly, the political indifference between him and his son started making headlines. He got an unceremonious ouster from the post of party Chief. Later, the family feud escalated and his brother Shivpal had to call it quits and form his own political outfit, Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (PSP).

At the end of his political career, he softened his stand for PM Modi. Once, he even shocked the entire Parliament and standing beside Congress MP Sonia Gandhi, he gave a prognosis that PM Modi should return back to power.

The outpouring of tributes from all sides of Political spectrum on death of Mulayam Singh once again highlights the importance of doing ideology-based politics and not having personal enmity towards anyone.

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