A little over 25 years after Mulayam Singh Yadav founded the Samajwadi Party, he lost control over it today after the Election Commission recognised his son and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister as its president and allowed him to retain the 'bicycle' symbol.
The body blow for the socialist leader came 72 days after the party he floated and nurtured celebrated its silver jubilee on November 5 amid continued tension with Akhilesh.
Barely three weeks later, the Akhilesh Yadav camp held a national convention where the 43-year-old leader was anointed the national president of the party founded by his father replacing him.
Samajwadi Party was one of several parties which emerged after the Janata Dal got fragmented in the early 1990s.
SP, which is primarily an Uttar Pradesh-based party contested Lok Sabha and state Assembly elections around the country, but its successes have largely been limited to the state.
In the assembly election in Madhya Pradesh in 2003, the SP won seven seats, making it the third largest party in the state.
In the 2012 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, it registered a landslide and formed the government.
It would have been a 5th term for Mulayam Singh Yadav as Chief Minister of state, but he surprised everyone by nominating his son Akhilesh to the coveted position.
Samajawadi Party supported to the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre.
It had contested the 2009 general election in alliance with Rashtriya Janata Dal and Lok Janshakti Party of Bihar. In the last general election, Samajwadi Party was convincingly defeated by the BJP and its allies in Uttar Pradesh which together won 73 of the state's 80 Lok Sabha seats.
SP, before today's poll panel order, was the 13th largest party in Parliament.
In the last Lok Sabha polls in 2014, it won only 5 seats.
All winning candidates belonged to Mulayam's family.
West Bengal Socialist Party of Kiranmoy Nanda merged with SP, which has two MLAs in Bihar and one each in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal.
Nanda had presided over the December 1 convention which anointed Akhilesh as new Samajwadi Party president in place of Mulayam.
There was simmering discontent within the ruling family ever since Akhilesh became the Chief Minister. Mulayam's younger brother Shivpal was not in favour of Akhilesh as Chief Minister.
When the battle lines were drawn and last gasp efforts began for control over the party, the SP got clearly divided into two camps with one led by Akhilesh and Ramgopal Yadav, Mulayam's cousin, and the other by the Yadav chieftain himself. Mulayam had the backing of Shivpal and friend Amar Singh, often described as an "outsider" and blamed for the rift in the family.
Akhilesh had fired his uncle Shivpal twice from the cabinet and it was seen by many as a direct challenge to his father, who steadily showed preference for his younger brother over son.
The battle in the family took a decisive turn when Akhilesh released a parallel list of 235 candidates for the state assembly polls.
Mulayam and Shivpal had already released a list of 325 candidates in the absence of Akhilesh which did not go down well with the Chief Minister who wanted a decisive say in selecting the nominees.
Simmering tension in the state's ruling party erupted into a full-fledged war on December 30, 2016, when Mulayam expelled Akhilesh and Ramgopal Yadav from the party for six years on grounds of indiscipline but reinstated them within 24 hours after a meeting of 200 of the party's 229 MLAs at the Chief Minister's residence.
At the SP National Convention on January 1 called by Ram Gopal, Akhilesh Yadav was declared the national president of Samajwadi Party.
Naresh Chandra Uttam was named chief of SP's state unit by Akhilesh replacing Shivpal.
In the mean time, Mulayam expelled Ramgopal again for six years for the third time in six months.
Those expelled for attending the convention included vice-president Kiranmoy Nanda and state general secretary Naresh Agarwal, a Rajya Sabha MP.
As the tussle for controlling the party organisation continued, both the factions knocked the Election Commission's door claiming to be the "real" Samajwadi Party and seeking the 'bicycle' symbol.
In its today's order, the EC said, "The commission hereby answers the issue by holding that the group led by Akhilesh Yadav is the Samajwadi Party and is entitled to use its name and its reserved symbol bicycle for the purposes of the Election symbols (Reservation and Allotment) order 1968," formally ending Mulayam's control over the party he founded.
