Shivpal Yadav's new front to contest all 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh

Shivpal Yadav, the enstranged uncle of Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav, said the morcha will also do well in the next assembly election.

Shivpal Yadav. Photo: File (PTI)

LUCKNOW: After floating the Samajwadi Secular Morcha, its founder Shivpal Yadav on Friday announced that the front will contest all 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh in 2019. "We will be tying up with smaller parties and unite those neglected and humiliated and contest the polls with full strength. Without our support no government will be formed at the Centre," he told reporters in Baghpat. Yadav, the enstranged uncle of Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav, said the morcha will also do well in the next assembly election. "We will emerge as a strong party in the 2022 assembly polls," he said. Shivpal Yadav had launched the new outfit on August 29, complaining that he had been sidelined in the Samajwadi Party. He still remains an SP legislator. "Our journey has started and it will not stop," he said, adding that he was "humiliated" in the SP on many occasions. Shivpal Yadav was unceremoniously removed from the post of SP state unit president after his nephew Akhilesh Yadav assumed charge as the party's national president last year, edging out Mulayam Singh Yadav. The morcha held its first meeting on Friday at Budhana near Muzaffarnagar. Talking with reporters there, Shivpal Yadav ruled out the possibility of joining the Bharatiya Janata Party. He said the new morcha was fighting at two fronts, the communal forces and the Samajwadi Party. Just before Yadav announced the formation of the Samajwadi Secular Front, there was speculation that the disgruntled SP legislator might join the ruling BJP. Expelled SP leader Amar Singh had said he had arranged a meeting between Yadav and top BJP leaders, but the MLA did not show up for it. Yadav also briefly met BJP ally Suheldev Baharatiya Samaj Party chief Om Prakash Rajbhar, but both denied that the meeting had anything to do with politics.