How Ram Gopal engineered the Sunday coup for Akhilesh Yadav

Know in detail how senior Samajwadi Party leader, Ram Gopal Yadav, engineered the coup to make Akhilesh Yadav the supreme leader of the party.

Lucknow, Jan 2: Having written the constitution for the Samajwadi Party, Mulayam Singh Yadav's cousin Ram Gopal Yadav was the man of the moment when a coup was staged on Sunday. He met with legal experts, consulted senior political leaders and ensured that coup was a successful one.

On Sunday, the convention called for by Ram Gopal in the capacity of General Secretary of the Samajwadi Party chose Akhilesh Yadav as the party chief. Mulayam, who immediately said the grand convention was unconstitutional, will find himself on weak ground.

For starters having written the constitution of the party, Ram Gopal knows it like the back of his hand. Second, the constitution allows for the general secretary to call for a convention if more than 40 per cent of the elected representatives ask for one.

The coup engineer:
Ram Gopal made sure that everything was right legally. He was preparing for this coup for the past three months. During this period he met with legal experts and several other experts to ensure that the convention was declared valid.

At the time the convention was called for, Shivpal Yadav was the president of the party. Ram Gopal was aware that Shivpal would give the convention a skip. However, he relied on the constitution which said the vice president of the party must be present in the absence of the president. Kirnmoy Nanda, the vice president of the party was present at the convention.

When Ram Gopal wrote the constitution, he did not lay out a procedure on how a president must be impeached. He used this loop hole to his advantage to oust Shivpal as the president.

It was all about the numbers game and the lead up to the convention saw a large number of Akhilesh supporters backing him to the hilt.

OneIndia News