Shivpal-Akhilesh compromise likely? Meet for 1st time after split

Lucknow: In their first one-to-one meeting since the vertical split in Samajwadi Party, Shivpal Yadav on Friday held talks with defiant nephew Akhilesh at his residence here on a "compromise formula" for a possible patch-up. Party insiders were tight-lipped on what transpired at the brief meeting Shivpal had with Chief Minister Akhilesh. Shivpal later met his brother Mulayam Singh Yadav as well. However, sources privy to the fast-paced developments did not rule out the possibility of resignation of Rajya Sabha MP Amar Singh, the "outsider" whose return to SP triggered a storm in the ruling party in Uttar Pradesh, under a "compromise formula". Another possibility could be resignation of Shivpal from the post of state SP chief, a charge held by the chief minister before the current family feud broke out. It was the first meeting between Akhilesh and Shivpal since the chief minister donned the mantle of SP chief replacing his father Mulayam. An inkling of a patch-up came late last night when Akhilesh planned to go to the airport here to receive his father, but dropped the idea when he came to know that Amar Singh was accompanying him in the chartered flight. Soon after Mulayam's return from Delhi, his apolitical brothers Abhayram Yadav and Rajpal Yadav met him apparently to end the strife in the family. During a meeting with SP MLAs, MLCs, MPs and senior leaders to collect their signed affidavits for submission before the EC, Akhilesh had yesterday asked his father to give him Samajwadi Party's control for three months. The meetings Shivpal had with Akhilesh and later with Mulayam this morning reflected hectic behind-the-scene negotiations as the Akhilesh camp prepared to hand over documents to the EC to claim that it was the "real" SP. Leader of the Akhilesh camp Ramgopal Yadav claimed they have collected signatures of 212 of the 229 MLAs, 56 of the 68 MLCs, 15 of the 24 MPs and a majority of the 5,000 delegates, "making it crystal clear as to which was the real SP".