'Want you to become PM again': When Mulayam Singh Yadav hailed Modi in Lok Sabha | WATCH
Mulayam Singh Yadav death: 82-year-old former defence minister was admitted to Gurugram's Medanta Hospital in August and was shifted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) on October 2. He passed away on Monday (October 10, 2022).
Mulayam Singh Yadav death: Samajwadi Party supremo and three-time chief minister of Uttar Pradesh Mulayam Singh Yadav died on Monday at a hospital in Gurugram after a prolonged illness.
"Mere adarniya pitaji aur sabke netaji nahi rahe - Akhilesh Yadav," the SP tweeted from its Twitter handle.
The 82-year-old former defence minister was admitted to Gurugram's Medanta Hospital in August and was shifted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) on October 2.
President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi were among a host of leaders who condoled his passing away.
When Mulayam Singh Yadav showered praises on PM Modi in Lok Sabha
Despite being in the Opposition, Mulayam Singh Yadav never refrained from hailing Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The SP leader once created a flutter in the Lok Sabha when he praised PM Modi's 'Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas' ideology and hoped that he comes to be the PM again in the 2019 polls.
During his address in the Lok Sabha ahead of the 2019 general elections, Mulayam Singh Yadav said he wished to see Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister for a second term.
Yadav also said the prime minister has done work for the goodwill of the country and that no fingers can be raised on him.
"I would like to congratulate PM Modi as you have managed the Parliament really well and worked for everyone's welfare. He has made all efforts to take everyone together which is a very difficult to thing to do and nobody could raise a finger against him. I have experienced that whenever I met him, he got my work done instantly," said Mulayam Singh Yadav.
He further said, "I really appreciate and respect your work. And I hope, along with the Parliament that you and all MPs should win again. This is my wish. We couldn't win the majority. We want you to become the Prime Minister once again".
In response, PM Modi folded his hands to thank the veteran leader while the NDA members thumped the table to welcome Yadav’s statement.
PM Modi condoles Mulayam Singh Yadav's demise
On Monday, soon after the news confirming Mulayam Singh Yadav's demise was confirmed, PM Narendra Modi took to Twitter and said Yadav served people diligently and devoted his life towards popularising ideals of Jayaprakash Narayan and Ram Manohar Lohia.
The Congress and BJP condoled Yadav's demise and said his passing away was an irreparable loss to Indian politics.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced a three-day state mourning and said Yadav's last rites will be conducted with full state honours.
Mulayam Singh Yadav's political journey
Born on November 22, 1939, into a farming family in Saifai near Etawah in Uttar Pradesh, Yadav spawned the state’s most prominent political clan.
Yadav served as defence minister from 1996 to 1998, and chief minister thrice in 1989-91, 1993-95, and 2003-07.
The SP supremo was elected an MLA 10 times and an MP, mostly from Mainpuri and Azamgarh, seven times.
For decades, he enjoyed the stature of a national leader but Uttar Pradesh largely remained the “akhara” where Yadav played out his politics, beginning as a teenager who was influenced by socialist leader Lohia.
For party workers, even when he was no longer the SP president - the mantle passed on to his son Akhilesh Yadav in 2017 - the patriarch remained “Netaji”, the leader.
His presence on the scene provided the glue that held the Yadav clan together, at least to a degree.
A “socialist”, Yadav was open to possibilities in politics.
He founded his own Samajwadi Party in 1992.
Yadav struck deals with the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress whenever needed to form or save the governments led by him in Uttar Pradesh.
In 2019, Netaji sprang a surprise by praising Modi in Parliament, wishing that he would return as prime minister after the next election.
This, when his party saw Modi’s BJP as its main rival in UP.
The remark baffled analysts.
Just as another comment, back in 2014 at a rally, triggered outrage when he spoke against the death sentence for rapists, saying “boys make mistakes”.
Yadav, who took part in student union agitations and briefly taught at an inter-college after getting a Political Science degree, first became an MLA in 1967.
During his second term as MLA from the same constituency, Indira Gandhi declared an Emergency and Yadav was sent to jail, like many opposition leaders.
Back in the ring after the 1975-77 Emergency, Yadav became the state president of the Lok Dal. When the party split, he headed one faction of the state unit.
Yadav was the leader of the Opposition in the UP Legislative Council and then in the state assembly, before becoming the chief minister in 1989 with the BJP extending outside support to his Janata Dal government.
When the saffron party withdrew support over the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi issue in 1990, Congress kept its government afloat for some months.
In November 1993, Yadav again headed a government in UP, supported by the BSP. It collapsed when the ally pulled the rug.
The SP leader then moved to the national stage, being elected to the Lok Sabha in 1996 from Mainpuri.
As opposition parties tried to form a non-BJP alternative to the Congress, Yadav briefly appeared to be in the fray for the prime minister’s post.
But he ended up becoming the defence minister in the United Front government headed by H D Deve Gowda and the Sukhoi fighter jet deal with Russia was finalised during his term.
Years later, he would be part of a short-lived coalition of Janata Parivar parties that hoped to fight the 2015 Assembly elections in Bihar together.
In 2003, Yadav became UP chief minister for the third time after the collapse of a short-lived BSP-BJP coalition government.
In 2012, the SP was again in a position to form the UP government. But the senior Yadav stepped aside so that his son Akhilesh could become the state’s youngest CM at 38.
But squabbling in the party and the family led to a coup of sorts by Akhilesh Yadav in 2017. Akhilesh, the son from his first wife Malti Devi - he later married Sadhna Gupta - was at loggerheads with the old guard that included uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav.
In the final years of his life, the ailing patriarch played a diminishing role in the affairs of the party that he had founded.
(With inputs from agencies)