Ten things to know about veteran politician Mulayam Singh Yadav
- Mulayam Singh Yadav, born November 22, 1939, was a senior Indian politician and the Samajwadi Party’s supremo. He was a Lok Sabha member from Uttar Pradesh’s Azamgarh constituency
- Mulayam Singh Yadav, the founder of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and three-time chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, rose to prominence in UP politics during a period of intense social and political ferment following the 1970s. Mulayam, who emerged as a socialist leader, quickly established himself as an OBC stalwart, capturing political space vacated by the Congress. He took the oath of office as Uttar Pradesh’s 15th Chief Minister in 1989, the year the Congress was voted out of power, and has yet to return to power in the state.
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Mulayam Singh Yadav, the founder of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and three-time chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, rose to prominence in UP politics during a period of intense social and political ferment following the 1970s. The Other Backward Classes (OBCs) began to gain political power in UP, pushing the upper-caste-dominated Congress party to the margins. In the aftermath of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) aggressive Ram Janmabhoomi Temple campaign, India’s most populous state experienced sharp communal polarisation.
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Mulayam, who emerged as a socialist leader, quickly established himself as an OBC stalwart, capturing political space vacated by the Congress. He took the oath of office as Uttar Pradesh’s 15th Chief Minister in 1989, the year the Congress was voted out of power, and has yet to return to power in the state.
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Following the 1989 UP elections, Mulayam took over as Janata Dal leader, with outside support from the BJP. He was elected CM for the second time as SP leader in 1993, when the Kanshi Ram-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) joined forces with him.
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Mulayam Singh Yadav was sworn in as the CM for the third time in 2003 as the leader of an SP-led coalition. His three stints together totaled a period of nearly six years and 9 months.
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Mulayam, a wrestler-turned-teacher, was born in Etawah on November 22, 1939, and earned his MA (political science) and B.Ed degrees.
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He was elected as a Samyukt Socialist Party (SSP) candidate from Etawah’s Jaswantnagar for the first time in 1967, but lost to the Congress’ Bishambhar Singh Yadav in 1969.
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Mulayam Singh Yadav joined Chaudhary Charan Singh’s Bharatiya Kranti Dal (BKD) ahead of the 1974 mid-term elections and won the Jaswantnagar seat on its ticket. On the Janata Party ticket, he won this seat again in 1977. He served as co-operative and animal husbandry minister in the Ram Naresh Yadav government in the late 1970s.
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Mulayam lost his seat to the Congress’ Balram Singh Yadav in the 1980 elections, when the Congress made a comeback. He later switched to the Lok Dal and was elected as its candidate to the state Legislative Council, as well as the Opposition leader.