Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Sunday, took to Twitter to greet Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh on his 81st birthday.


Not only PM Modi, the veteran socialist leader also received praise, wish, and greetings from leaders across the country, including Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and Lok Sabha speaker OM Birla. While the members of the Samajwadi Party youth wing known as Mulayam Singh Youth Brigade, launched a blood donation drive to celebrate their leader’s birthday.


Mulayam Singh, who also served as the Union Defence Minister from 1996 to 1998, started his political career from his college days.


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“Spoke to Mulayam Singh Yadav and greeted him on his birthday. He is one of the senior-most and experienced leaders of our country who is passionate about agriculture and rural development. I pray for his long and healthy life,” PM Modi tweeted.





In 1967, the three-time CM of UP was first elected to the state legislative assembly from Jaswantnagar seat near Etawah district. Groomed by the leader of socialist ideology such as Ram Manohar Lohia and Raj Narayan, Yadav was sent to jail for 19-months in 1975, after an emergency was imposed by Indira Gandhi. In 1977, he became the state minister for the first time.


Born in 1939, Yadav became the CM of UP for the first time in 1989, and after the collapse of the V. P. Singh national government in November 1990, Yadav joined Chandra Shekhar's Janata Dal (Socialist) party and continued in office as chief minister with the support of the Indian National Congress (INC). His government fell when the INC withdrew their support in April 1991 in the aftermath of developments at the national level where it has earlier withdrawn its support for Chandra Shekhar's government. Mid-term elections to the Uttar Pradesh assembly were held in mid-1991, in which Mulayam Singh's party lost power to the BJP.


In 1992, the socialist leader launched his own political party, the Samajwadi Party. The leader then contested the 1993 elections with Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party and the coalition won the elections. The alliance between the parties prevented the return of BJP to power in the state. Yadav became chief minister of Uttar Pradesh with the support of Congress and Janata Dal.


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Later in 2003, Mulayam Singh became the CM of the state for the third time. The heavyweight leader, in 2004 and 2009 extended his support to the Congress Party, in Lok Sabha, but failed to play a major role in the central politics.


After defeat in 2007 assembly elections, the party made a comeback in 2012 in the state legislative assembly, but failed to impress the voters in the “Modi Wave”. In 2017, under the leadership of Akhilesh Yadav, his son, Samajwadi Party lost the assembly elections and in 2019 failed to make a major stint in the Lok Sabha elections.


Mulayam Singh, who is also known to keep personal ties stronger than the political, while addressing the Lok Sabha in 2019, just before the elections, praised PM Modi and wished that he may come back to the house as the PM again. Sitting beside congress Supremo Sonia Gandhi, he also wished the members good luck for the upcoming elections.