SP general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav on Saturday submitted affidavits signed by party legislators and office-bearers to the Election Commission and claimed that the Akhilesh Yadav camp should be given the cycle symbol and considered the real SP. Yadav submitted the documents in copies of seven, as asked by the poll panel. Later, talking to reporters, he claimed that the documents run into over 1.5 lakh pages and bear signatures of over 200 MLAs, 56 of the 68 MLCs, 15 of the 24 MPs and nearly 4,600 of over 5,000 delegates supporting Akhilesh. “Ninety per cent of the legislators and delegates are with Akhilesh Yadav, therefore it is crystal clear that we are the real SP. we should be given the cycle symbol and considered the real SP,” he said. Ram Gopal, a cousin of Mulayam Singh Yadav, also claimed that a set of the documents was sent to the latter at his Delhi residence but he refused to acknowledge the receipt. “Now it will be sent to his Lucknow address,” Ram Gopal added. With truce efforts between the warring factions so far yielding no result, the Mulayam camp is likely to submit its set of affidavits on Monday as per the deadline set by the EC for both sides to furnish papers in support of their claims. On January 3, both factions of the SP petitioned the EC staking claim over the SP and its symbol. Senior leader Azam Khan made attempts to broker peace between the father and son, but no clarity has emerged on the issue.
