Akhilesh Yadav, senior Samajwadi Party leaders pay tribute to socialist leader Mulayam Singh Yadav on death anniversary

Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav and several senior party leaders on Friday (October 10, 2025) paid floral tributes to party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav at his native village, Saifai, on his death anniversary. Prominent SP leaders, including Shivpal Yadav, Rajya Sabha MPs Ram Gopal Yadav and Ramji Lal Suman, and several others, attended the memorial event.

Speaking to reporters on the occasion, Akhilesh Yadav said the site would soon house a memorial dedicated to the late SP leader. “This will be a memorial in Netaji’s [Mulayam Singh Yadav] name, a memorial for all socialists. It will continue to inspire generations. Through it, Netaji will live on in our lives in the form of his ideas,” he said.

Earlier, Rajya Sabha MP Ramji Lal Suman told PTIVideos that Mulayam Singh Yadav held a significant place in India’s socialist movement. “I do not see it as an achievement that he became the Defence Minister or the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. When all socialist factions merged into the Janata Party in 1977, the socialist movement practically ended in India. But in 1992, Mulayam Singh Yadav united socialists across the country to form the Samajwadi Party,” he said.

Mr. Suman added that as long as “helplessness, unemployment, and inequality” exist in the world, socialist ideology will remain relevant. “Whether history writes four pages or four lines about him, he will forever be remembered in India’s socialist movement,” he said.

Senior leader and Rajya Sabha MP Ram Gopal Yadav, who is also Mulayam Singh Yadav’s brother, said his support base extended far beyond his party. “Throughout his life, Netaji never turned away anyone who sought his help, even from other parties. I am a witness to it that whenever he was Chief Minister, he clearly instructed his secretary that if anyone, whether from the BJP, the Congress or the BSP, came for genuine work or those concerned to their relatives, they should be helped without delay,” he recalled.

“He fought for the poor and gave respect to the deprived sections of society. Those who didn’t know the way to Delhi, he made them Members of Parliament, those unfamiliar with Lucknow, he made them MLAs,” Mr. Gopal Yadav said, adding that Mulayam Singh gave the marginalised “the dignity to walk with their heads held high.”

A veteran socialist leader inspired by Ram Manohar Lohia, he was known for his deep grassroots connections and mobilisation of Backward Classes.

Over his five-decade political career, Yadav served multiple terms as both MLA and MP. He passed away on October 10, 2022, at the age of 82. His last rites were done at his native village, Saifai.