Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, basking in glory of stellar performance in recent Lok Sabha elections in which his party won 37 seats in UP, has to take a difficult decision of selecting his successor  as the leader of opposition in UP assembly. The monsoon session of the UP assembly is commencing from July 29. Akhilesh Yadav was elected to UP assembly in March 2022 from Karhal assembly seat and he held the post of the leader of opposition. The post fell vacant in June after he was elected to Lok Sabha from Kannauj and decided to retain his Lok Sabha seat and resigned from UP assembly. The front runner for the post is his uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav— the younger brother of party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav. Akhilesh Yadav had a running feud with his uncle in January 2017 after he took command of the party after dislodging his father Mulayam Singh Yadav.  Shivpal Yadav had parted company with nephew and floated his own political party in April 2027. However, the family was reunited after the death of Mulayam Singh Yadav in October 2022. Sources in Samajwadi Party said Akhilesh Yadav may bring somebody from outside the family as five members of the first family of the party, including Akhilesh Yadav, have already been elected to Lok Sabha. Three cousins and wife of Akhilesh Yadav were elected to Lok Sabha while another uncle Ram Gopal Yadav is party leader in Rajya Sabha. The sources said the party MLAs close to Akhilesh Yadav were not in favour of giving command of the 105 MLAs to Shivpal Yadav.  This section, which is in favour of strengthening the PDA (Pichhada, Alpsakhyak and Dailt) plank of the party, wants either a Dalit or a non-Yadav OBC leader as leader of opposition in the UP assembly. While the decision lies with the leadership, there is a divide within the party as some feel that Shivpal Yadav, who is well connected with the cadre, can take the MLAs along better. However, considering the recent Lok Sabha elections, it is felt that the party could give the responsibility to a senior Scheduled Caste leader like Indrajeet Saroj, who is a Pasi like (Lok Sabha MP) Awadhesh Prasad, to convince the community that once in power, the party would give due leadership roles to them or to a non-Yadav OBC leader like Ram Achal Rajbhar, a party leader said. However, the drawback of both Saroj and Rajbhar is that they are former Bahujan Samaj Party leaders and a section of the party wants an established name to take over. The idea behind floating their name is to use the leader of opposition post to push the partys PDA plank that had helped the SP expand beyond its traditional Muslim-Yadav voter base during the Lok Sabha elections. Caste equations aside, there are many veteran leaders like former assembly speaker Mata Prasad Pandey, said an SP leader. However, 81-year-old Pandeys age and the oppositions desire to take a more aggressive stance until the next assembly polls have led many to believe that he is not the most suited for the role of leader of opposition.   The rank and file of the party wants an aggressive stance against the ruling in view of the coming bypolls to 10 UP assembly seats and the larger goal of coming to power in the 2027 state assembly elections.    

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