<b>Letters</b>: Either way a setback

With reference to Archis Mohan’s report, “SP feud reaches Election Commission over party symbol” (January 4), and the editorial, “Not by caste alone” (January 3), the power tussle between Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in the caste-dominated Samajwadi Party does not augur well for the party’s future. 

The persistent act of washing dirty linen in public by the party’s divided leadership is an own goal; that apart, it is becoming the laughing stock for voters in the Assembly poll-bound state.   

Mulayam Singh Yadav’s move to expel his son and Ram Gopal Yadav and subsequently revoking that order point to the SP patriarch’s indecisiveness. It also explains his unusual apprehensions about the likely impact thereof on the party’s vote bank.   

As the family feud has reached the doors of the Election Commission, it is likely that the party symbol, a cycle, would be frozen and both camps would have to contend with a new and yet unknown symbol. It may be difficult to popularise this new symbol and woo voters.

Although Akhilesh Yadav seems electorally better placed because of his “development” image in the state, the fact remains that a divided SP could be a setback for him, too, in the polls. Let’s wait and watch for this electoral bout.

S Kumar   New Delhi