KANPUR: Samajwadi Party (SP) patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav’s daughter-in-law and Lalu Prasad Yadav’s ‘samdhin’ (daughter’s mother-in-law) Mridula Yadav has been elected unopposed as the head of Saifai block in the ongoing panchayat elections in the state.
“A formal announcement was made by the returning officer on Friday,” said former Mainpuri MP Tej Pratap Singh Yadav.
Saifai Block, which was constituted in 1994, always had a pramukh who was a member or closely associated with the Yadav clan. The 55 BDC members from the Saifai panchayat elect a block chief and out of those 55 all are often BDC members of the Samajwadi Party. For the first time, Ranveer Singh, son of Mulayam’s eldest brother Ratan Singh, was elected as the head of Saifai block. Ranveer was elected as the block head of Saifai in 2000 again.
However, after his sudden demise in 2002, the responsibility of the block head of Saifai in 2003 was given to Dharmendra Yadav, son of Mulayam’s younger brother Abhayram Yadav. Dharmendra vacated the seat a year later when he was elected as MP from Mainpuri in the 2004 Lok Sabha by-elections as Mulayam vacated the seat after becoming the chief minister in 2003.
Thereafter, Mulayam’s close confidante Nathu Singh’s nephew Arvind Yadav remained as the block head till the responsibility was passed on to Ranvir’s son and Mulayam’s grandson Tej Pratap who became the block pramukh in 2011. He, however, vacated the seat in 2014 after he was elected from the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat. Thereafter, Tej Pratap’s mother Mridula Yadav took over at the new pramukh of Saifai block.
