New Delhi, Oct 10, 2022, By Special Correspondent
New Delhi, Oct 10: Diminutive in size, but tall in political stature, Mulayam Singh Yadav was a living paradox who has left his footprints on the sands of time.
The three-time chief minister of Uttar Pradesh (1989–91, 1993–95, and 2003–07), was born on November 22, 1939, in a poor farming family near Etawah, in what is now west-central Uttar Pradesh. He was one of six children.
Yadav, who went on to spawn the state's most prominent political clan, died on Monday after prolonged illness. He was 82. The former defence minister was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of the Medanta Hospital in Gurugram on October 2.
Initially he wanted to become a wrestler, but he went to college and completed a Masters degree in political science from Agra University.
But the grappling-type techniques that he mastered as a wrestler came in handy in a different bout when he became involved in politics at the tender age of 15. He was bowled by the writings of socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia, whose books left an indelible imprint on his life and character.
Lohia's convictions on the equality of peoples and other social-justice issues strongly influenced Yadav's own ideas about standing up for the rights of lower-caste Hindus and the minority Muslim population. His actions based on those principles gave his political career a rocksolid foundation.
Yadav's first electoral victory came way back in 1967, when he won a seat in the lower house of the Uttar Pradesh legislature. He was reelected in 1974, but his term was interrupted when he was one of the opposition politicians arrested in 1975 and held for 19 months during the Emergency period.
After his release in 1977, he contested and won back his seat in the state assembly. In 1977 itself, Yadav became the president of the Lok Dal in Uttar Pradesh. Later that year, after that party split, he headed the state's Lok Dal-B faction. In 1980 Yadav was elected president of the Janata Dal. Two years later he became an MLC and served as the Leader of the Opposition there until 1985.
Yadav was again elected to the UP assembly seat in 1985 and he led the opposition in the lower house till 1987. In 1989, he became the chief minister with the BJP extending outside support to the Janata Dal government. The BJP, however, withdrew its prop in 1990 in the wake of the Babri Masjid issue in Ayodhya.
But, Yadav continued in power for some more months with the help of the Congress, until that party too withdrew support paving the way for the BJP to form a government.
After the 16th-century mosque was demolished in December 1992 and riots broke out, Yadav and his newly formed Samajwadi Party (founded in October 1992) grabbed the situation to champion the cause of the Muslims, who credited him with supporting them when the Congress government at the Centre had failed to protect the mosque.
In the November 1993 UP assembly polls, the SP won enough seats to form a coalition government and the following month Yadav again became chief minister. His tenure lasted less than two years as his government fell after the BSP left the coalition in 1995, triggering bitter political rivalry between the two parties and between Yadav and BSP leader Mayawati.
With his party pushed to the brink in Uttar Pradesh, Yadav took a plunge in national politcs. In 1996, Yadav won the Lok Sabha election and came close to becoming the country's prime minister, though he was upstaged in that attempt.
JD (Secular) chief HD Deve Gowda emerged as the consensus candidate of the United Front (UF) coalition government (of which SP was a partner), and Yadav settled for the post of defence minister.
The UF government was in power for two years until early 1998. Yadav was re-elected to the Lok Sabha in 1998 and in 1999.
His Samajwadi Party made a dramatic comeback in the 2002 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. Though his SP did not get a majority, Yadav became UP chief minister for the third time after the collapse of a short-lived BSP-BJP coalition government in 2003.
Following BSP's trouncing of the SP in the 2007 state assembly elections, Yadav served as leader of opposition in the assembly (2007–09) before being elected again to the Lok Sabha in 2009.
In early 2012, the SP won an outright majority in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. Yadav retained his leadership of the party, but he stepped aside to allow his son, Akhilesh Yadav, to step into his shoes and become the state's chief minister.
The senior Yadav was re-elected in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, but his party could win only five seats.
Though Mulayam Singh Yadav was the party's founder and its president for a long time, members of the Yadav clan fought among themselves ahead of the 2017 UP assembly polls and Akhilesh donned the mantle of party chief after a bitter battle for supremacy within the party.
The frequent tiffs between the father-son duo in the run up to the 2017 UP assembly elections and the subsequent Lok Sabha elections in 2019 kept making headlines for days and weeks and months.
On the last day of the 16th Lok Sabha, the SP patriarch had, in his customary speech to mark the end of the last session of the House before the next general elections, lavished praise on Narendra Modi and wished he would become Prime Minister again, stunning the wider Opposition, though the BJP veteran acknowledged the sentiment with folded hands.
Were these episodes just political courtesy or ‘Shishtachar’ in public life? Or were they also a testimony of Mulayam’s political games? ‘Neta ji’ never ever spoke about the tricks up his sleeve, even as his admirers and critics remained divided in their opinion.
But there is surely no doubt that throughout his social, political journey spanning nearly five decades, the ‘Dharti Putra’ or son of the soil was tempered into steel through unprecedented struggle, a strong resolve to succeed, and an uncanny ability to forge alliances and friendships.
His often-infamous style of U-turn in politics, commonly referred to as “Charkha Daun” in wrestling parlance, probably stems out of his struggles to survive through the turbulent rough and tumble of politics over the decades.