Days after he had to cancel a dinner meet organised for Samajwadi Party's lawmakers, SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav gave it back to his son Akhilesh Yadav, telling a gathering at a function in home turf Mainpuri that he had never felt as humiliated in his life as he did during the previous five years.
"Yeh sahi hai jo apne baap ka nahin woh kisi ka nahi ho sakta" (It is true that a man who betrayed his father cannot be loyal to his people), said the 77-year-old, who was perceived to have given in to his son to end a bitter father-son feud for control over the party ahead of the assembly elections.
It was a charge that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had levelled at Akhilesh Yadav in the run-up to the elections during a rally in Kannauj. Mr Yadav recalled this remark and agreed with Mr Modi on this account and felt that the SP got a drubbing in the 2017 assembly elections because people too agreed.
The three-time Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, who was also opposed to the alliance with the Congress, had kept an arm's distance from the SP's campaign and ventured out only to campaign for brother Shivpal in Jaswantnagar and daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav in Lucknow. After the party's stunning defeat, he also skipped the party's national executive that met after the debacle in the just-concluded assembly elections.
At the inauguration of a hotel in Mainpuri, Mr Yadav appeared to speak his heart out amid loud applause from his audience.
The veteran politician said he was the first politician to name his son the Chief Minister despite being active in political life. "While the people voted for me as the Chief Minister in 2012, I chose to make Akhilesh the Chief Minister, but he humiliated me thereafter... I have never been insulted so much ever in my life," he rued.
"But I did not say anything to anyone as my own blood was out against me," he said, calling it a tragedy that his son had joined hands with the Congress which thrice led "murderous attacks" on him.
This week, the SP founder organised a dinner for the party's 47 newly-elected legislators but had to cancel the event at the last minute after the lawmakers were told that they should only go for meetings convened by the new party chief, his son Akhilesh Yadav.
