EC to decide on Jan 13 who gets Samajwadi's cycle

The Election Commission will hear the two warring factions of SP led by chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and his father Mulayam Singh on January 13 before taking a final call on who gets the party's poll symbol cycle.

The EC directive came amid reconciliatory efforts from both sides. A day after Mulayam said there were no differences between him and Akhilesh and all issues would be sorted out, the Uttar Pradesh chief minister held a three-hour long meeting with his father in Lucknow.

"Akhilesh has the support of maximum leaders and workers," SP Rajya Sabha member Naresh Agarwal told this newspaper.

Party sources said both sides were showing reconciliatory tendencies and this was good for the SP. The dispute over who calls the shots in the party started by end of December last year and has continued since.

In between, both Mulayam and Akhilesh flexed their muscles and also reviewed their numerical strengths.

Sources said Mulayam, who has still not withdrawn his petition before the EC despite making pro-Akhilesh statements, may do so on January 13.

But if he fails to do so, the EC may freeze the disputed symbol cycle and allot new symbols to the two factions.

With the notification for phase one of the assembly polls in UP starting January 17, political observers said the SP was losing crucial time as the dispute festered.

Acknowledging that losing the cycle symbol would bring some discomfort, the pro-Akhilesh camp said they had already started preparing for the elections and may not be caught unawares.

The worry, they said, should be more for the Mulayam camp.

"We are going ahead with our plans," Lok Sabha MP Ravi Verma said.

With BSP chief Mayawati asking its leaders to make good use of the factions fight in the SP, the ruling party leaders said they were not losing the perception war as they have been to explain it to their voters that party veterans Shivpal Yadav and Amar Singh were instigating Mulayam against Akhilesh at the behest of the BJP. Meanwhile, the BSP has stepped ahead in the past week by naming 400 of the 403 candidates for the polls.

Hinting at an alliance with the Congress, a section of SP expressed the hope that a regrouping of secular forces would be able to effectively counter the BJP which is aggressively campaigning in the state.