Hyderabad: The inevitable was obvious but perhaps none was prepared to believe that the man who was successful in creating a parallel democratic platform, challenged the legacy of Congress, thwarted the aggression of BJP and manoeuvred the Leftists ideologues, the man who braced the voices of the regional parties and took the demands of the states to the national corridors of power, is no more and will never be able to say 'Jiska jalwa kayam hai, uska nam Mulayam hai' (The person whose charisma is still present, his name is Mulayam Singh) again.
The invincible magician of Indian politics and once a known wrestler of Uttar Pradesh, Mulayam Singh Yadav lost his final bout on Monday after battling for days at Medanta hospital in Gurugram. To define Mulayam Singh Yadav popularly known as 'Netaji' as the 'three-times chief minister' or the former defence minister might be an understatement rather the UP muscleman (not in literary terms but because of his passion for wrestling) should be remembered as a man who has created a niche of his own in Indian politics.
'Netaji' loses his final wrestling match When in 1992, Mulayam Singh Yadav formed the Samajwadi Party nobody believed that the regional parties can also have their own narratives defined on the national parameters but in only just four years Mulayam proved it to be possible. Samajwadi party not only struck a balance between the apparent warring Congress and Left Front but designed a secular third front where the smaller regional parties could register their voices at the national level.
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He was one of the principal architects of the move to forge a third front comprising anti-BJP, anti-Congress forces. He foresaw a re-enactment of 1996, when the Congress slipped badly, and the BJP was in no position to muster the numbers required to form the government. The result was surprising. He was not only successful in forming two consecutive governments at the centre between 1996 and 1998 under the Prime Ministership of H D Deve Gowda and I K Gujral but increased the presence and importance of the state-level parties at the centre.
A trained wrestler, Yadav was one of the big survivors in Indian politics. Born in Etawah's Saifai village on November 22, 1939, he completed his MA in Political Science from BR College in Agra University. Mulayam Singh was 15 years old when he embraced socialism. It was here that he came under the influence of Dr Ram Manohar Lohia, one of the tallest socialist leaders of his time.
'Netaji' loses his final wrestling match During this movement, he was jailed for 3 months. He became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh for the first time in 1989. After the fall of the VP Singh government in 1990, he flirted with Chandra Shekhar's Samajwadi Janata Party for a while before founding the Samajwadi Party in 1992.
Mulayam's journey from the wrestling ground to the corridors of power has been as colourful as his life itself. It was a wrestling match in 1962 that changed the fortunes of this young wrestler. Mulayam impressed United Socialist Party candidate Nathu Singh with his wrestling prowess during that match in Jaswant Nagar. Singh, in turn, guided the wrestler to change his turf to politics. In 1967, Singh gave Mulayam an assembly ticket. It marked the beginning of a career politician who became an MLA 10 times and a Parliamentarian 7 times. He became the chief minister of the state three times and was the defence minister of the country once.
Also read: PM Modi pays homage to Mulayam, hails him as grounded leader
Yadav - like a true wrestler bounced back when everyone had lost their hope in him. He first became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1989. After the collapse of the V. P. Singh national government in November 1990, Yadav joined Chandra Shekhar's Janata Dal (Socialist) party and continued in office as the CM with the support of the Indian National Congress (INC).
His government fell when the INC withdrew its support in April 1991 in the aftermath of developments at the national level where it had earlier withdrawn its support for Chandra Shekhar's government. Midterm elections to the Uttar Pradesh assembly were held in mid-1991, in which Mulayam Singh's party lost power to the BJP.
When BJP was looking to make strong inroads into UP - Mulayam outwitted the saffron brigade with his magic spell. On December 6, Babri Masjid was vandalised by karsevaks. Kalyan Singh resigned and President's rule was imposed. In December 1993 in the Assembly polls when everyone was sure about BJP's return to power riding on Ram Mandir euphoria, Yadav gave a masterstroke by joining hands with BSP. Consolidating the caste Hindu and Muslim votes, Yadav became the CM for the second time. He engineered a split between the BJP and BSP and went on to become the CM for the third time.
Despite managing his political rivals and keeping him relevant in mainstream politics, Yadav could not negotiate his family feud during his last days. Since the young Akhilesh Yadav became the CM of Uttar Pradesh in 2012, upstaging Mulayam's brother Shivpal Singh Yadav, the Yadav’s house has been divided. One of the groups, led by Akhilesh, enjoyed the support of his father's cousin and National General Secretary Ram Gopal Yadav. The rival group was led by Mulayam Singh and supported by his brother and State Chief of Party, Shivpal Yadav, and a friend, former MP Amar Singh. Akhilesh had fired his uncle twice from his cabinet challenging the supremacy of his father.
On 30 December 2016, Mulayam Yadav expelled his son Akhilesh and his cousin Ram Gopal from the party for six years on the grounds of indiscipline, only to revoke the decision 24 hours later. Akhilesh, in response, stripped his father of the party presidency and instead named him the chief patron of the party following the national convention of the party on 1 January 2017. Mulayam termed the national convention as illegal and directly expelled his cousin, Ram Gopal Yadav, who had convened the national executive convention. But the Election commission of India ruled that Ram Gopal Yadav had the right to convene that executive convention, and reversed Mulayam's order. Hence, Akhilesh Yadav officially became the new national leader of the party.
Though Yadav continued to be an MP from Manipuri constituency till he died but according to political observers his political influence over the party and the state had come to end after Akhilesh removed him from the crucial party post.
