Lucknow, May 5 (IExpress) : Senior Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Yadav announced on Friday that he is forming a new party — ‘Samajwadi Secular Morcha’, news agency ANI reported. SP veteran Mulayam Singh Yadav will be the chief of the new party, he claimed.

Shivpal, who retained the Jaswantnagar constituency during the recent assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, said “the new party aims to bring true Samajwadis together”. Shivpal, who has a running feud with former chief minister, Akhilesh Yadav, had expressed his intention to form a new party before the Assembly elections.

A few days ago, Shivpal had said he had made up his mind to launch a new secular front as Akhilesh was yet to step down as party president.

“Akhilesh had promised to hand over the party to ‘netaji’ (Mulayam). He should now do so and we all will strengthen the SP. I had also given him three months’ time. Otherwise, I will constitute a new secular front,” Shivpal was quoted as saying by news agency PTI on Wednesday.

Adding that he would unite all ‘Samajwadis’ (socialists), Shivpal said he would bring them on a common platform.

Shivpal had earlier replaced Akhilesh as the state unit chief following which Akhilesh removed Shivpal from the state cabinet.

The Samajwadi Party’s infighting had broken into national headlines almost six months before the state elections were due. Akhilesh had held his

Contrary to his father’s will, Akhilesh had forged an alliance with the Congress in the assembly elections that flopped badly.

The infighting continued even after the party’s debacle in the polls. where the party was able to secure seats in only 54 out of the 403 constituencies.

Akhilesh went on to name Ram Govid Chowdhury as the Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly instead of Shivpal. On the debacle, Mulayam, in an attack on Akhilesh, had commented that “the voters understood that “one who is not loyal to his father, cannot be loyal to anyone.”

Many in the party blamed the power struggle between Akhilesh and his uncle Shivpal as the reason behind Samajwadi Party’s dismal performance.