New Delhi

Samajwad Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav who was chief minister of Uttar Pradesh thrice and also became India’s Defence Minister was one of the few politicians who openly spoke for Muslims earned him the sobriquet of Maulana Mulayam Singh Yadav.

He worked out social engineering formula in which Muslims and the other backward castes of Hindus joined hands in their political support thus giving Yadav and later his son massive political clout and a long period to rule.

During Yadav’s tenure as chief minister of UP, the police opened fire on Karsevaks who were headed to Babri Masjid in Ayodhya which was eventually demolished during the tenure of Kalyan Singh of BJP.

Yadav’s son Akhilesh Yadav continued his father's policies and politics till the first Mayawati rose as a voice of the scheduled castes and the eventual rise of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh.

Yadav was influenced by socialist leaders like Ram Manohar Lohia. After the Mandal commission report that divided the Indian political spectrum along social castes, Samajwadi Party struck the deal of all the times when it decided to join hands with arch rival Mayawati which meant a political and social alliance between OBSc, Muslims, and SCs.

Interestingly, Yadav was chosen as MLA from six different parties - Samyukta Socialist Party, Bharatiya Kranti Dal, Bharatiya Lok Dal, Lok Dal, Janata Dal, and Janata Party.

In all these terms, he never got an opportunity to complete his term thanks to the political ups and downs in the state during those decades.

In 1992, Mulayam launched his party Samajwadi Party.

He remained a popular leader though, at times, his regime was considered to have encouraged bullying by musclemen and party workers.

His controversial remarks like "Ladkon se galati ho jati hai (Boys tend to commit mistakes) earned him the wrath of women and liberals.

The present chief minister Yogi Adityanath has recently demolished massive properties of political leaders who had allegedly raised empires under the patronage of the Samajwadi party rule. 

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Nevertheless, Mulayam Singh was an important leader in the non-Congress coalition regime led by V P Singh and was one of the claimant's for Prime Minister's post. He was India’s defense minister in the V P Singh cabinet. Like other socialists Defence minister George fernandese, Yadav had also predicted China will emerge as a bigger security threat to India than Pakistan.