Uttar Pradesh elections 2017: Want to see Akhilesh become CM, says Sadhna Yadav

While Yadavland — which includes Etawah and Mainpuri — went to vote in the third phase of the state Assembly elections on Sunday, it seems the chief minister had won his family’s confidence, including his stepmother Sadhna Yadav. The Yadav family feud that spilt into the public arena last year saw Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and father Mulayam Singh Yadav fight it out for the party supremacy. Party insiders and those close to the family in Etawah and Lucknow had then said Sadhna Yadav, aided by Mulayam’s brother Shivpal Singh, had emerged as a power centre in the family.

Eventually, the Election Commission appropriated the party symbol, the cycle, to the Akhilesh faction in January. First to arrive in the morning at the Safai voting booth, where the Yadav family members are voters, were Kanauj MP Dimple Yadav and husband Akhilesh. Then came SP patriarch Mulayam, who backed him. “The government has done a lot of development in UP. Akhilesh will be the CM,” said Mulayam.