Uttar Pradesh’s ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) has virtually split, with party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav on Friday expelling his son and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav along with senior leader Ramgopal Yadav for six years.

The State has been plunged into a political crisis as Akhilesh is now the Chief Minister but not a member of the ruling party.

Flanked by his brother Shivpal, who is widely believed to be the force behind this shocking move, Mulayam said the new Chief Minister would be chosen by the party. “We have to save the party. The party comes first. That is why we are expelling Akhilesh and Ramgopal,” Mulayam said at a press conference in Lucknow.

Mulayam said Ramgopal, who had earlier been expelled and then taken back into the party, had started targeting him and that such activities “cannot be tolerated”.

The moment the announcement was made, supporters of Akhilesh thronged the streets shouting anti-Shivpal and Mulayam slogans.

Ramgopal, at the same time, described the move as anti-Constitutional and that Mulayam is acting against the party.

The family feud, which has been simmering for the past couple of months because of the power tussle between Mulayam and Shivpal on one side and Akhilesh and Ramgopal on the other, erupted this week when Mulayam released a list of candidates for the upcoming polls that did not include any of Akhilesh’s supporters.

Following this development, Akhilesh released his own alternative list of 235 candidates, which included all of his loyalists who had been denied a party ticket.

Prominent among those fielded by Akhilesh were Pawan Pandey, Arvind Singh Gope and Ram Govind Chowdhury. He also called a meeting of his supporters and a core group of the party while Mulayam called a separate meeting on Saturday, inviting all the 395 candidates he has decided to field.

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