‘Parivarvaad has benefits’: Akhilesh says 5 family MPs ensured SP never split

Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav stated on Saturday that the concept of parivarvaad, or dynasty politics, has its advantages, and his party has remained united because it has five MPs from one family. Speaking at a press conference at SP headquarters in Lucknow, Akhilesh dismissed rumors about attempts to split the party.

When asked about BJP's allegations of SP encouraging nepotism by gifting tickets to candidates from one family, Akhilesh said that one should also consider the advantages of parivarvaad. He recalled that it was recently mentioned in the Lok Sabha that MPs were being poached, and several parties had faced splits. However, Akhilesh questioned why the SP had never experienced a split.

He attributed this to the fact that five of its MPs were from the same family, adding that the party also had a strong base of Muslim MPs and several die-hard SP supporters. Akhilesh mentioned that these MPs include himself, his wife Dimple, and his cousins Aditya Yadav, Akshay Yadav, and Dharmendra Yadav, all MPs from different constituencies in Uttar Pradesh.

Confident of retaining the Yadav community's support and aiming to attract non-Yadav OBC voters, Akhilesh's party fielded only five Yadav candidates in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, all of whom won. The Muslim MPs highlighted by Akhilesh are Afzal Ansari, Iqra Choudhary, Zia Ur Rehman, and Mohibullah, with the latter three inheriting political legacies from their families, except for Mohibullah.