I am STILL the boss: Mulayam tells Akhilesh

SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, in a clear message to Chief Minister Akhilesh, gave out tickets to 10 of the ministers who were sacked by his son

The bitter power struggle within the Samajwadi Party continues and going by the statements made by Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav it is clear that he has sided with his brother, and not the son. After the list of 325 candidates to contest the Uttar Pradesh elections was announced, Mulayam told the media that the party would go to polls without a chief ministerial candidate.

While Akhilesh Yadav, the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, had prepared a list of candidates, Mulayam decided to override it. In the list, several candidates selected by Akhilesh were left out. Mulayam made it clear that he was the boss and even gave out tickets to 10 ministers who were sacked by Akhilesh.

The list of 10 include: Shivpal Yadav, Ambika Chowdhary, Manoj Paras, Yogesh Pratap Singh, Shadab Fatima, Om Prakash Singh, Shiv Kumar Beria, Raja Aridaman Singh, Raj Kishore Singh and Narad Rai. The list also did not include Akhilesh's favourite candidates, Arvind Singh Gope, Ram Gobind Chaudhary and Tej Narayan Pandey.

Akhilesh not CM candidate:

Mulayam's announcement clearly showed that Akhilesh was not the CM candidate. However, Mulayam, while sending out a strong message to his son tried to downplay it before the media. He said that the SP did not have a tradition of announcing a CM candidate. "The MLAs would decide on the CM candidate after the elections," he said.
But Akhilesh did not take this kindly.

He immediately sacked Sandeep and Surabhi Shukla who are loyalists of Shivpal, his uncle. This is being considered as a tit-for-tat reaction by Akhilesh after Mulayam had clearly sided with Shivpal.

Observers say that the battle will only get bitter. Akhilesh is not one to give up so easily and will try and cause more hiccups to both his father and uncle. Mulayam is clearly on the side of Shivpal. Mulayam has been considered as the peace maker, but for now his attempts have clearly failed.