Mulayam Singh Yadav's daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav says, Ram Temple should be built in Ayodhya

Aparna Yadav, the chhoti bahu or younger daughter-in-law of Mulayam Singh Yadav, said on Wednesday a Ram temple should be built in Ayodhya, also making clear where her loyalties lie in her politically divided family. She will choose the side of “Shivpalji and Netaji” if she gets a chance to contest the 2019 elections, she said.

“Ram Temple should come up in Ayodhya. The Ramayan mentions the Ramjanmbhoomi. We should wait till January for the court to begin hearing,” she said when asked about her views on the matter.

Speaking in Barabanki near UP capital Lucknow, Aparna Yadav, 28, asserted that Shivpal Yadav’s party Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) will have an impact on the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

When asked if she gets to contest 2019 polls, who would she go with, Aparna replied: “I will go with the elders. Though its lot of time yet for the 2019 polls, let’s see how things unfold.”

The Yadavs, formerly the first family of Uttar Pradesh, are deeply split with ex chief minister Akhilesh Yadav now in command of the Samajwadi Party that his father Mulayam Singh Yadav, fondly called Netaji, founded more than 25 years ago. In taking over, he exiled his uncle Shivpal Yadav who has since then launched a new party.

Mulayam Singh, seen as torn between son and brother, is watched closely to see which side the veteran politician will eventually throw his weight behind ahead of the crucial national election next year.

Akhilesh Yadav has accused Shivpal Yadav of cosying up to the ruling BJP, pointing to the allotment of a large bungalow in the heart of Lucknow to his uncle by the Yogi Adityanath government



recently.

Aparna Yadav’s comments today on the Ram temple will give the Samajwadi Party more fuel as it goes against Mulayam’s and party’s stated stand that the matter was in the Supreme Court.

Aparna Yadav is the wife of Prateek Yadav, Mulayam Singh’s younger son and Akhilesh’s step-brother. In the bitter family feud between Akhilesh and Shivpal, the couple leaned towards the uncle. Their visit last year to greet Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath soon after the BJP ousted the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party in the UP assembly elections had also drawn much interest.

The Yadav chhotti bahu has not made any bones about her admiration for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, indulging in a fan moment when she clicked a selfie with him at a family function last year. Asked whether it signalled a political inclination, she had argued, “He is everyone’s PM.”

She had fought the 2017 assembly elections as the Samjawadi Party’s candidate from Lucknow, but was defeated. Rita Bahuguna Joshi, imported by the BJP from the Congress just before the elections, won. The BJP swept the UP elections, winning 312 of 403 seats; the Samajwadi Party was a distant second, considerably weakened by its internal feuding.

The BJPs assembly elections win followed another sweep in 2014 of the last Lok Sabha elections in UP, when the party had won 71 of the state’s 80 seats. In its bid to retain power at the Centre next year, the party hopes to replicate its performance in UP, which sends the most members to Parliament.

Akhilesh Yadav has experimented with tying up with his father’s arch rival Mayawati in preps for 2019 to test a formidable alliance to defeat the BJP.