Latest revision as of 20:01, 25 October 2022

Mulayam Singh Yadav: political career, 1989-2016; January 1, 2017, The Times of India

[edit] A brief biography

Mulayam Singh Yadav, a timeline
From: TNN, Oct 11, 2022: The Times of India

See graphic:

Mulayam Singh Yadav, a timeline

[edit] Early life

Deepak Lavania, Oct 11, 2022: The Times of India

AGRA: Before joining politics, Mulayam Singh Yadav joined as a teacher at Jain Inter College in Karhal, Mainpuri, in 1963 shortly after completing his graduation and teaching course. He was an assistant teacher at the same institution from where he had completed his intermediate. In 1974, after attaining a master’s degree in political science, he was promoted and became a lecturer with a salary of Rs 120 per month. On Monday, several of his students recalled his “fun-filled” and “interesting” style of teaching.

Bhagwan Singh, a student of the SP leader between 1963 and 1966 said, “He used to teach us social sciences. He would try and tell us something relatable so that we could understand the topic. Despite being a well-regarded wrestler, he was never harsh with any student. He was a favourite of all students.”

Triloknath Shakya, another student who was taught by MSY during the same period and who is also retired as teacher from the institute, said, “Netaji had immense knowledge of history. He would often tell us about Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi. Despite becoming CM, he never forgot his students and remembered a majority of us by name.”

Ranveer Singh Yadav, a lecturer at Jain Inter College and whose father, Ram Roop Yadav, was a roommate of MSY in Mainpuri said, “Netaji served as a teacher at the school for over 20 years. He continued to teach even after becoming an MLA for the first time from the Jaswantnagar constituency of Etawah district in 1967. To pursue politics full-time, he resigned from his teaching job in 1984. His last drawn monthly salary was Rs 120.”

Teachers at Jain Inter College shared with TOI many anecdotes about the SP leader. “In 1989, Netaji was passing through the district and saw one of his students, Siyaram Yadav, walking on the road with a cloth tied around his waist and a bundle of wheat husk on his head. The CM stopped his cavalcade and inquired about the well-being of his old student. Siyaram told him that his son was trying to get a job as a constable but was finding it difficult. Netaji instantly wrote a note on a piece of paper and handed it over to his secretary. Siyaram’s son got appointed within a week,” a teacher recalled.

[edit] Rise in UP politics

Oct 10, 2022: The Indian Express

Mulayam rose in UP politics in a period of intense social and political ferment after the 1970s, when the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) had started gaining political ascendancy in UP, leading to the sidelining of the Congress party dominated by upper-caste leaders. India’s most populous state was then also witnessing sharp communal polarisation in the wake of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s aggressive Ram Janmabhoomi Temple campaign.

Here is how Mulayam, called ‘Netaji’ by his supporters, worked up his way to dominate UP’s political landscape.

Wrestling arena to political arena

A wrestler-turned-teacher, Mulayam, who was born on November 22, 1939, in Etawah, completed his MA (political science) and B.Ed degrees. He was elected as an MLA for the first time from Etawah’s Jaswantnagar in 1967 as a Samyukt Socialist Party (SSP) candidate, but lost the election in 1969 to the Congress’s Bishambhar Singh Yadav.

Ahead of the1974 mid-term polls, Mulayam joined Chaudhary Charan Singh’s Bharatiya Kranti Dal (BKD) and won Jaswantnagar seat on its ticket. He again won from this seat in 1977 on the Janata Party ticket. In the Ram Naresh Yadav government in late 1970s, he was co-operative and animal husbandry minister.

A wrestler-turned-teacher, Mulayam, who was born on November 22, 1939, in Etawah, completed his MA (political science) and B.Ed degrees. He was elected as an MLA for the first time from Etawah’s Jaswantnagar in 1967 as a Samyukt Socialist Party (SSP) candidate, but lost the election in 1969 to the Congress’s Bishambhar Singh Yadav.

Ahead of the1974 mid-term polls, Mulayam joined Chaudhary Charan Singh’s Bharatiya Kranti Dal (BKD) and won Jaswantnagar seat on its ticket. He again won from this seat in 1977 on the Janata Party ticket. In the Ram Naresh Yadav government in late 1970s, he was co-operative and animal husbandry minister.

In the 1980 polls, when the Congress bounced back, Mulayam lost his seat to the Congress’ Balram Singh Yadav. He later switched to the Lok Dal and was elected to the state Legislative Council as its candidate and also became the Opposition leader.

In the 1985 Assembly elections, Mulayam was elected on the Lok Dal’s ticket from Jaswantnagar and became Leader of the Opposition.

Months before the elections to the 10th UP Assembly in 1989, Mulayam joined the VP Singh-led Janata Dal and was appointed its UP unit chief. After having emerged as the key Opposition face, he started a statewide Kranti Rath yatra. His rallies featured a theme song, “Naam Mulayam Singh hai, lekin kaam bada fauladi hai….”

In this election, the Janata Dal emerged as the single largest party, winning 208 out of 421 seats, just stopping short of a majority. The BJP bagged 57 seats while the BSP won 13 seats. Mulayam was elected from Jaswantnagar again on its ticket.

He was sworn in as the CM on December 5, 1989.

CM stints

Mulayam took oath as UP’s 15th CM in 1989, which marked the year when the Congress was voted out, failing to return to power in the state ever since.

Mulayam took over as the CM as Janata Dal leader with outside support from the BJP. He became the CM for the second time in 1993 as SP leader, when the Kanshi Ram-headed Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) became his ally. He was sworn in as the CM for the third time in 2003 as the leader of an SP-led coalition. His three stints together amounted to a period of nearly six years and 9 months.

In November 1990, when the Janata Dal was split into two factions, led by VP Singh and Chandrashekhar, the Congress supported the Chandrashekhar government at the Centre and the Mulayam Singh government in UP. Subsequently, the Congress pulled the plug on both the governments, which led to fresh polls in UP as well as at the Centre.

After the fall of his government, the SJP contested on 399 seats in the 1991 UP polls, but could win just 34 seats. Mulayam, however, was elected from both Jaswantnagar and Shahjahanpur’s Tilhar seats.

During his first stint as the CM, Mulayam was riding on the rising political and social aspirations of people belonging to non-upper castes. He started several schemes for their empowerment, including a coaching scheme for the SC/ST/OBC candidates preparing for various competitive examinations. He however remained in the line of the Opposition’s fire over his party’s association with several politicians with criminal background. In his second stint, his government increased OBC reservation from 15 per cent to 27 per cent on the basis of the Mandal Commission report. It ensured quota for various social categories in the three-tier panchayat raj institutions. But he was dogged by allegations of protecting criminals and promoting his family members in politics.

The SP is founded

In 1992, Mulayam founded his own party, the SP, which became a leading player in UP politics since.

Mulayam took oath as the CM for the second time after the 1993 polls, in which the SP won 108 seats as against the BJP’s 176 and the BSP’s 68. He contested from Shikohabad, Jaswantnagar and Nidhaulikalan, and won from all three seats. The BJP staked claim to form the government as the single largest party, even as Mulayam claimed the support of 242 members belonging to all the non-BJP parties and some Independents.

A 27-member SP-BSP coalition ministry headed by Mulayam assumed office on December 4, 1993. On January 29,1995, the Congress withdrew support to this government. On June 1,1995, the BSP also pulled the plug on the government. Governor Motilal Vora asked Mulayam to resign, but he refused to do so. On June 3, 1995, Vora dismissed the Mulayam government.

The 2002 polls threw up a hung UP Assembly, following which the BSP and the BJP jointly formed their coalition government with BSP leader Mayawati as the CM. In August 2003, Mayawati resigned, clearing the decks for Mulayam to get sworn in as the CM for the third time. He had not contested the 2002 election. After taking over as the CM in August 2003, he contested the by-election from Gunnaur and won.

Amid growing social fragmentation and the BJP wooing several non-Yadav OBC castes, Mulayam was then increasingly being perceived as a leader of Yadavs and Muslims. To expand his social base, he tried outreach to upper-caste communities, especially Thakurs. His third CM stint was thus highly influenced by his associate, late Amar Singh, who connected him with corporate and film circles too.

In the 2012 polls, when the SP won a majority and formed its government, Mulayam transferred the leadership mantle to his son Akhilesh Yadav, letting him take over as the CM.

Outside UP

Mulayam was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1996 polls and served as the defence minister in the United Front governments led by HD Deve Gowda and, later, IK Gujral. He also contested successfully a number of subsequent Lok Sabha elections, including the 2019 polls, from various seats across UP. He contested in 2007 from two seats, Bharthana in Etawah and Gunnaur in Badaun, and won both.

As the defence minister, Mulayam was known for promoting Hindi in the defence establishments’ correspondences.

In 1999, when the Atal Behari Vajpayee government fell by one vote and Congress president Sonia Gandhi appeared set to lead the formation of a coalition government, it was Mulayam who raised the issue of her foreign origin and thwarted her move.

[edit] Contributions

Shyamlal Yadav, Oct 12, 2022: The Indian Express

If the first generation of leaders of Uttar Pradesh — as indeed of other parts of the country — were freedom fighters; the second generation — which emerged from the late sixties onward — were street fighters. Many of these leaders were socialists who cut their political teeth on campuses, fought vigorously for people’s causes, and acquired stature during and after the Emergency.

Mulayam Singh Yadav was the tallest and most prominent leader of this generation — a man who set new rules and benchmarks for political action in UP and, to a significant extent, other parts of North India as well. His passing marks the end of an era.

1.  Assertion of farming communities

Ram Manohar Lohia rallied farming communities — many of whom would later comprise the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) — with the slogan, “Sansopa ne baandhi gaanth, pichhde paawein sau mein saath (The Samyukt Socialist Party has taken this resolve, OBCs should get 60% of all)”. After Lohia — who passed away in October 1967, soon after Mulayam Singh Yadav becoming MLA for the first time — the Jat leader Charan Singh consolidated the OBCs. Most of these groups rallied behind V P Singh after he quit the Congress, which was not willing to accommodate their aspirations.

With the coming to power of Mulayam Singh Yadav on December 5, 1989 began a long period in the politics of UP during which upper castes were kept away from power. This phase — unbroken except for short periods in 1999-2000 and 2000-2002 when Ram Prakash Gupta and Rajnath Singh became CMs — ended only with the coming to power of Yogi Adityanath, a Thakur, in 2017.

It was under Mulayam that the post-Mandal 27 per cent reservation for OBCs was implemented — triggering social churn that nudged the BJP to project Kalyan Singh, an OBC leader, as CM in 1991. While the biggest share of the spoils of political power under Mulayam went to Yadavs, the representation of OBCs in government improved overall; significantly, several OBC communities who did not use their surnames in previous decades now began to feel confident enough to do so.

2. Entry of Dalits in corridors of power

In 1977, when Ram Naresh Yadav became the first non-upper caste CM of UP, a prominent contender for the job was the Dalit leader Ram Dhan. But it was the emergence of Mulayam and his politics of social justice that for the first time allowed Dalits to get a foot in the door — a significant fact that is often obscured by the narrative of rivalry between the SP and Kanshi Ram’s BSP.

In the 1993 Assembly polls, which were held after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the BJP’s hopes of gaining from a Hindu consolidation were scuttled by Mulayam, who allied with the BSP, a party that was considered a small player until then. The SP-BSP government, however, did not last — Mulayam had his own style of politics, and the BSP was impatient for power. The contradictions in the alliance led to Mayawati becoming the first Dalit Chief Minister of UP in June 1995, supported, ironically enough, by the BJP.

The BSP gained in strength thereafter, and Mayawati was able to form a government on her own in 2007, which lasted a full five years. She is the longest serving CM of UP so far, while second is Mulayam Singh Yadav himself. The SP and BSP did get back together in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, in which the BSP won 10 seats. The politics of both parties are at a crossroads now — and the BJP has employed a formula of social engineering that can no longer be countered by formulae such as “M+Y” that paid dividends in earlier periods.

3. Even before BJP, a Congress-mukt UP

The day Mulayam first took oath in 1989 was the Congress’s last day in power in UP. Before 1989, Muslims and Dalits were seen as the Congress’s base, besides most of the upper castes — Mulayam broke through this social alliance with his politics of social justice, delivering a blow from which the Congress could never recover. The slogan of “Congress-mukt Bharat” given by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah prior to the Lok Sabha elections of 2014 was in a way realised by Mulayam in UP a quarter century previously.

4. Among the tallest leaders of Muslims

A large section of the Muslim vote moved to Charan Singh when he defected from the Congress and went on to become Chief Minister twice and, for a short time, Prime Minister of India.

Muslims later moved to V P Singh’s Janata Dal and, in later years appeared to gravitate towards any party that was considered capable of defeating the BJP.

In UP, the chief beneficiary was Mulayam — who relied on a Muslim-Yadav coalition as his core constituency. This support has stood the test of time, as the vote percentage of the SP under Akhilesh Yadav in this year’s Assembly polls showed. With the SP out of power until at least 2027, however, it remains to be seen what percentage of the Muslim vote remains loyal to the party Mulayam founded.

5. The politics of dynasty and strongmen

The rapid criminalisation of politics in UP began during the Emergency, under leaders such as H N Bahuguna and N D Tiwari, patronised by Sanjay Gandhi. This trend continued during the Janata rule of 1977-80. The government of Chief Minister V P Singh, which came to power in June 1980, saw multiple encounter killings of criminals and dacoits, allegedly of certain castes.

The trend of criminal elements finding refuge in politics strengthened under Mulayam, who repeatedly faced allegations of protecting and promoting these elements. While he was not the only politician to be accused thus, it did leave a stain on the SP’s reputation.

[edit] 1990, Oct: M-Y politics

Neerja Chowdhury, Oct 16, 2022: The Indian Express

When frenzied kar sevaks tried to break into the Babri Masjid on October 30, Mulayam ordered a police firing to repulse them — something P V Narasimha Rao could not to do on December 6, 1992, leading to the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

“Ek parinda bhi par nahin mar sakta Ayodhya maen (I will not allow a bird to flap its wings in Ayodhya)”— the line famously delivered by Mulayam Singh Yadav in 1990 that was to make him the presiding deity of M-Y (Muslim-Yadav) politics in Uttar Pradesh for a quarter of a century after that.

The then chief minister of UP was responding to the BJP-backed Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s call to kar sevaks to gather in Ayodhya on October 30, 1990 and start the construction of a Ram temple there.

When frenzied kar sevaks tried to break into the Babri Masjid on October 30, Mulayam ordered a police firing to repulse them — something P V Narasimha Rao could not to do on December 6, 1992, leading to the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

The firing did not immediately earn Mulayam Singh Yadav the goodwill of the Muslim community. It triggered off anger amongst the Hindus in UP, and led to communal clashes in the state. There was curfew in as many as 20 districts and 48 died in Bijnore alone. Mulayam Singh lost the 1991 election that followed and the BJP came to power in UP with as many as 221 seats and Kalyan Singh as the CM.

It was after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 that the Muslims realised the import of what “Netaji” had done for them in 1990. He became the darling of the community and came back to power in the 1993 elections. Such was the faith the Muslims reposed in him that they used to frequently say that had “Netaji” been in power in Lucknow, he would not have let the mosque be demolished.

Mulayam Singh’s “parindey” remark came at a time when BJP leader L K Advani’s Somnath-to-Ayodhya rath yatra had been cut short by Lalu Prasad in Samastipur, Bihar, on October 23, 1990. The BJP had withdrawn its support to the National Front government and then prime minister V P Singh’s ministry was teetering on the brink, setting off the countdown to the elections. Despite Advani’s arrest in Bihar, the kar sevaks continued to make their way to Ayodhya from all corners of UP, on foot and even swimming across the Sarayu river.

The BJP saw the Ram temple as an emotive issue that could arouse Hindu opinion in its favour in the elections. The party hit out at Mulayam over the firing on “Ram bhakts”, took out an “asthi kalash” yatra of the remains of the “martyred” kar sevaks, and held a memorial meeting for them at Delhi’s Boat Club in April 1991 — on the eve of the national elections that year.

Though 28 people died in the firing — BJP stalwart Atal Bihari Vajpayee put the figure at 56 — the situation could have been worse if not for the precautionary measures Mulayam had put in place. Hours before the proposed “kar seva” on October 30, the government arrested 1,50,000 kar sevaks in UP.

For all his differences with then prime minister V P Singh, Mulayam moved in step with the Home Ministry at the Centre. Naresh Chandra, an outstanding bureaucrat whose services were uitilised by several prime ministers for his tough and out-of-the-box approach, was the Home Secretary. Raj Bhargava was the Chief Secretary. “I had 90,000 people confined in cantonments,” Naresh Chandra once told me. “Dozens of culverts along the bus routes that would have brought these people were blown in UP. Trains were cancelled at will.” Chandra had delegated the power of the Home Secretary to Raj Bhargava, who was in the hot seat. The Railway Board Chairman was told that if the Chief Secretary gave the order that a train had to be cancelled, he had to comply. The effort was to keep the kar sevaks out of Ayodhya, so that it did not become an inflammable situation. CM Mulayam Singh cooperated totally with the Centre and did not interfere in the plan the Home Ministry had put in place.

A tough stand on Ayodhya suited Mulayam Singh politically. He had been a beneficiary of Mandal politics, and he now wanted to augment and consolidate his OBC base. It seemed good politics to get Muslims —19-20% of the population in UP — on his side, along with his own Yadav community, who made up around 10%.

The M-Y combine began to crack in 2014 when Narendra Modi came to power. A section of the Yadavs, who were getting Hinduised, swerved towards the BJP. Yogi Adityanath’s decision to accord a state funeral to Mulayam showed that the BJP continues to eye the Yadav community for support. Mulayam had himself spoken in favour of Modi in the 2019 elections.

Mulayam leaves a rich legacy for his son Akhilesh Yadav and for the Samajwadi Party he built. But he also leaves them a challenge — to fashion a new constituency that goes beyond the M-Y platform that he forged in 1990 and a way to counter Modi’s heady cocktail of Hindutva, nationalism, social welfarism, strong leadership, and co-option of OBCs and the most backward among them.

[edit] YEAR-WISE DEVELOPMENTS

[edit] 1984: Plot to kill MSY

Rajeev Dikshit : Feb 16 2017 : The Times of India

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a blistering attack on Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav for taking “politics to the nadir“ by tying up with Congress, the party that had “conspired“ to have his father, Mulayam Singh Yadav, killed. It's a charge that Mulayam had himself first levelled against Congress in 1984. “After the attempt on Mulayam's life, Charan Singh and Vajpayee had formed Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha to intensify the anti-Congress movement. But, in a bid to remain in power, Akhilesh has joined hands with the party that tried to kill his father,“ Modi said at a rally in Gursai ganj of Chhibramau assembly segment on Wednesday .

On March 4, 1984, Mulayam's car was fired at by some persons while he was on his way from Etawah to Lucknow, and the name of a top Yadav leader of the Congress had figured in the case. Mulayam has mentioned the allegation in the past and repeated it during the recent Ya dav family internal feud.