State scan: Shivpal Singh Yadav queers SP pitch before 2019 Lok Sabha poll

Shivpal Singh Yadav's departure is expected to spur more senior Samajwadi Party leaders gravitating towards his Samajwadi Secular Morcha

Diagonally opposite to the Samajwadi Party (SP) headquarters in Vikramaditya Marg, Lucknow, stand freshly erected hoardings carrying the image of party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav. The red-hued hoardings display comparatively large images of his younger brother, Shivpal Singh Yadav, and Shivpal’s son Aditya Yadav.
 
These large cutouts, however, do not hail the socialist outfit or its election symbol, the bicycle, but the newly floated Samajwadi Secular Morcha (SSM), which Shivpal had announced last month after quitting the SP although he has not yet resigned from the party.
 
The war between Shivpal and his nephew, Akhilesh Yadav, Mulayam’s son,