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Journalism of Courage
When the Samajwadi Party (SP) completed 30 years of its formation on October 4, its founder patron Mulayam Singh Yadav was in hospital, battling for his life. He died six days later.
To his followers and old friends, many of whom visited the veteran in his last days, it was the end of an era of close associations, despite differences, and the culmination of a long journey of joint struggle.
Apart from the above, Mulayam’s close lieutenants included his cousin and Rajya Sabha MP Ram Gopal Yadav, former MP Kiranmoy Nanda and former MP Rewati Raman Singh. While many of Mulayam’s associates got sidelined under Akhilesh, Ram Gopal, Nanda and Rewati Raman Singh survived the power shift by backing the right horse in Mulayam’s son.
Janeshwar Mishra, who was believed to have convinced Mulayam to introduce “educated youth” (including Akhilesh) in politics, thus helping the SP shed its baggage of being a party past its time, passed away in 2010. Months after Akhilesh became Chief Minister in 2012, he laid the foundation of a park in Lucknow as tribute to Mishra.
A Kurmi leader, Beni Prasad Verma was first elected to the Assembly in 1974, under the banner of Charan Singh’s Bharatiya Kranti Dal (BKD). Mulayam too was in the BKD at the time and won on its ticket. Verma remained Mulayam’s loyal fellow traveller through Mandal politics, when Mulayam became UP Chief Minister for the first time in 1989, when he split from the Janata Dal to contest separately in the 1991 Assembly polls, and when the SP was founded in 1992.
When Mulayam played an instrumental role in the formation of the United Front government at the Centre, he chose Verma, along with Janeshwar Mishra and himself, to represent the SP in the coalition government.
But in 2009, Verma parted ways with Mulayam, when the latter collaborated with Kalyan Singh, one of the main faces of the BJP’s Ram temple movement in UP. He joined the Congress, and was invited to join the then Manmohan Singh government in January 2011. Verma returned to the SP in 2016, when he was sent to the Rajya Sabha, only to be sidelined under Akhilesh starting 2017. He was not invited for the poll campaign and his son was denied an Assembly seat of his choice. Verma died in 2020.
Mohan Singh, another leader who was regarded highly by Mulayam, was a three-term MP from Deoria in eastern UP. Singh was with Mulayam in the Samyukta Socialist Party, Janata Party, Lok Dal, Janata Dal, and the SP. He died in 2013.
Bhagwati Singh had a bitter parting with the SP. After the party’s defeat in the 2017 UP polls to the BJP, he accused Akhilesh of being arrogant and criticised his decision to forcibly replace Mulayam as national president. Singh also accused Akhilesh of giving priority to youths and of sidelining experienced leaders. Singh passed away in April 2021.
Ram Saran Das, who died in 2008, was SP UP president for 17 years, from the formation of the party. A Gujjar leaer, he belonged to Saharanpur district of western UP. Such was Mulayam’s loyalty to him that while Das suffered a paralytic stroke two years
prior to his death, Mulayam continued with him as state president, while appointing a working president to ease his workload.
