NEW DELHI, Oct 11: The mortal remains of the veteran socialist leader and the founder of the Samajwadi Party Mulayam Singh Yadav was cremated with full state honours at his native village Saifai in Etawah district in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday evening.
The Samajwadi Party founder was a three-time chief minister of UP and also served as the country’s Defence Minister. He’d been ailing for months and breathed his last in a Gurugram hospital on Monday at the age of 82. His body was brought to Saifai and kept at the Mela ground on Tuesday to enable his thousands of admirers and followers to pay their tributes.
His son Akhilesh Yadav, the current SP chief and also a former chief minister, lit the pyre in the presence of leaders from across India’s political spectrum and others. UP’s BJP government has declared a three-day state mourning on his death.
UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath attended the funeral representing the state government while the Defence Minister Rajnath Singh of the BJP represented the central government. Congress’s presidential candidate Mallikarjun Kharge, Chief Ministers of Telangana and Chhattisgarh, K Chandrasekhar Rao of the TRS and Bhupesh Baghel of the Congress, were among the attendees.
“We had a very strong relationship. Mulayam Singh Yadav was a big personality in Indian politics, it is a huge loss for the country. We all have come here to pay our tribute to him. PM Modi could not come here but he asked me to pay tribute on his behalf,” Rajnath Singh tweeted. Supporters chanted “Netaji amar rahein” (‘Dear Leader Lives On’) as they walked with the vehicle carrying his body.
Actor Abhishek Bachchan, whose father Amitabh Bachchan was among Mulayam Singh Yadav’s old acquaintances, along with his mother actor Jaya Bachchan — who is also a Samajwadi Party MP, were part of the funeral procession. Also present was Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, along with Congress’s Kamal Nath from Madhya Pradesh and TDP’s N Chandrababu Naidu from Andhra Pradesh.
UP Deputy Chief Ministers Brajesh Pathak and Keshav Prasad Maurya also paid last respects to Mulayam Singh Yadav at the family house earlier, where his body was kept since last evening.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said in his condolence message: “Mulayam Singh Yadav Ji distinguished himself in UP and national politics. He was a key soldier for democracy during the Emergency. As Defence Minister, he worked for a stronger India. His Parliamentary interventions were insightful and emphasised on furthering national interest.”
An eight-time MLA and seven-time MP, Mulayam Singh Yadav worked as a teacher before entering politics fulltime in the mid-1960s. He was from a farming family and trained as a wrestler. He became a political heavyweight when a new assertion by backward castes led to a churn across India in the 1980s and 1990s.
After working with Janata Dal and other parties, he formed Samajwadi Party in 1992, He handed over the baton to son Akhilesh gradually over the past decade as age-related illnesses meant he could no longer be a hands-on leader.
Yadav, born on November 22, 1939, rose in UP politics in a period of intense social and political ferment after the 1970s. Emerging as a socialist leader, Mulayam established himself as an OBC stalwart, capturing a swathe of political space vacated by the Congress. He first 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.
(Manas Dasgupta)
