Lucknow: Top leaders of the Samajwadi Party (SP) were on Saturday evening trying to work out a rapprochement between the two warring sides, hours after the party leadership expelled MLC Udayveer Singh, who is close to Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.
The five leaders - Beni Prasad Verma, Naresh Agarwal, Kiran Moy Nanda, Rewati Raman, Mata Prasad Pandey- who earlier in the day met Mulayam Singh are now at Akhilesh's residence.
Calling the present situation "explosive", a source in the party top leadership said they will meet Akhilesh to figure out how the chief minister wanted to end the confrontation with the party.
Sources also said Udayveer was expelled to placate party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, who was angry with the MLC for writing a letter against his family.
Mulayam is also learnt to to be upset with his son Akhilesh for sheltering Udayveer, who wrote a letter alleging that the CM was targeted by his stepmother and that black magic used against him.
Party leaders are worried that the SP has already lost much time and is lagging behind in election preparedness.
The senior leaders were also concerned that the impasse would jeopardize the political career of the gen next in the SP which is looking to beat anti-incumbency in the state elections coming up in the first half of 2017.
The crisis in the party escalated on Friday when Akhilesh skipped the crucial party meeting convened by state unit chief and his uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav.
Akhilesh, with whom Shivpal is engaged in a running feud over the last few months, has already made it clear in a letter to Mulayam that he will be proceeding on his 'rath yatra' on November 3 to highlight the development work done by his government, in a clear indication that he would skip the November 5 silver jubilee celebrations of the party.
With the tense stand-off between Akhilesh and Shivpal continuing, speculation about a possible split is rife with some even suggesting that a new party could be formed by the Chief Minister ahead of the assembly elections.
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