Yadav vs Yadav: Ram Gopal bats for Akhilesh; says party leadership made mistake by removing him as UP SP chief

Amid ongoing crisis, Samajwadi Party's National General Secretary Ram Gopal Yadav on Thursday said that the party leadership had made a mistake by removing Akhilesh Yadav as its head.

Ramgopal, SP national general secretary and Mulayam's cousin, met Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in a bid to defuse the situation after the CM stripped his uncle and Cabinet Minister Shivpal Yadav of key ministerial portfolios, hours after Mulayam replaced him with Shivpal as the party's state unit chief.

"Differences do take place on some minor point and they can be resolved.... The leadership, though not deliberately, had made a mistake when CM was removed from the post of (state) president (of SP)," Ramgopal, who is known to be close to Mulayam's son Akhilesh, told reporters before the meeting.

"He (CM) should have been asked to resign and he would have tendered it. He could have been told that elections are coming and you continue as CM and the work of state president will be taken care of by him (Shivpal). Some misunderstanding has taken place and there is nothing more to it," he said.

He asserted that there is "no crisis" in Samajwadi Party.

Crisis  in the party has refused to die down even as senior leader Shivpal Singh Yadav told party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav that he was being painted as a villain despite following his orders.

On Wednesday, in a meeting over four hours long, Shivpal told Mulayam that in the past four-and-a-half years, he had followed the party supremo's directions despite differences of opinion on certain issues.

Later, while talking to reporters, Shivpal, however, rejected suggestions that there were differences within the party and the Yadav family. "Neither I nor Netaji (Mulayam) is angry. We all are happy... There are no differences," he said.

Shivpal also said that from re-inducting Amar Singh into the SP to experimenting with the 'Grand Alliance', he had always followed the directions of Mulayam and had been painted as a villain.

Mulayam is likely to reach Lucknow on Friday morning amid indications that he may have a one-on-one meeting with Akhilesh there.

(With agency inputs)