New Delhi: A day ahead of last and seventh phase of Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections 2017, Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav’s wife and chief minister Akhilesh Yadav’s step- mother Sadhna Gupta Yadav on Tuesday revealed that she had once wanted to join politics but her husband SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav didn’t allow her. “However, now I don’t want to join politics, but yes I would like my son Prateek to be a politician,” Sadhna told news agency ANI.
Sadhna, however, rubbished all the reports which claimed that she was the one who has ignited rift within the ruling Samajwadi Party. “Time has done everything and no one is to be blamed for it.I have given time to everyone, be it Professor (Ram Gopal Yadav) or his children, Dharmendra, Tipu or the daughter-in-laws. I have considered all as a family. I always wanted to give credit to Netaji. I always thought I am able to do things because of him, said Mulayam Singh Yadav’s second wife.
“I have been insulted a lot. Now I won’t step back. People should not have got the courage to say so many things about me. I was brought up in a family where my father used to say that one should not publicise good work, but now time is different. A Chief Secretary was transferred. The people said I was behind it. It’s false, though I wish I was so powerful,” Sadhna further added.
Hopeful of Samajwadi Party’s thumping victory in 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, Sadhna said, “I don’t know who misled Akhilesh. He respects Netaji and me a lot. I want our party to win again and Akhilesh to become the Chief Minister again. I have been more in conversation with Akhilesh since January 1, than I’ve been in the last five years. I want to see him become chief minister again.”
Showering praise on Akhilesh Yadav, Sadhna asserted that he has done a lot for Netaji (Mulayam Singh Yadav) and the party. No matter what, nobody should have disrespected Netaji. It is he who founded and nurtured the party.
Meanwhile, the power-packed campaign for the seventh and final phase of 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, covering 40 assembly seats in seven districts, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s turf Varanasi concluded on Monday. A total of 1.41 crore voters, including 64.76 lakh females will exercise their franchise in the last phase. 14,458 polling booths have been set up in this phase. The seven districts going to polls on March 8 in this phase are Ghazipur, Varanasi, Jaunpur, Chandauli, Mirzapur, Bhadoi and Sonebhadra. In all, 535 candidates, including 40 (BSP), 32 (BJP), 31 (SP), 9 (Congress), 21 (RLD) and 5 (NCP) are in the fray in this phase.
(With inputs from ANI)
