Mulayam Singh Yadav Passes Away at 82

NEW DELHI- Samajwadi Party founder and Former CM of Uttar Pradesh, Mulayam Singh Yadav passed away while undergoing at Medanta hospital in Gurugram on Monday. He was 82. The SP patriarch’s condition had been “quite critical” for the past few weeks and he was on life-saving drugs.

Party chief and Yadav’s son Akhilesh confirmed the news of the leader’s death on Twitter. “Mere adarniya pitaji aur sabke netaji nahi rahe – Akhilesh Yadav,” he tweeted from the party’s official handle.

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Soon after learning about the demise of the SP founder, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recollected his relationship with the veteran leader and tweeted: “Shri Mulayam Singh Yadav Ji was a remarkable personality. He was widely admired as a humble and grounded leader who was sensitive to people’s problems. He served people diligently and devoted his life towards popularising the ideals of Loknayak JP and Dr. Lohia.”

Popularly known as “Netaji” in political circles, the 82-year-old Mulayam Singh Yadav was a three-term Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, who was elected to the state Assembly eight times and to Parliament seven times. The wrestler-turned-teacher-turned-politician also served as Union Defence Minister.

Belonging to Saifai village of Etawah district, Mulayam’s personal journey as a politician would come to be closely woven with the political history of UP, right from the era of Mandal-Kamandal politics in the 1980s and 1990s, till he transferred the reins to his son Akhilesh Yadav in 2012.

He was a strong advocate of the use of Hindi in official communiqué, and often spoke against promotion of English. In 2013, he even sought a ban on the use of English in Parliament, while in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the Samajwadi Party’s manifesto spoke against “expensive English education” and also computers, saying these would lead to unemployment.