From the death of Samajwadi Party founder and former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Mulayam Singh Yadav till his funeral, the kind of activism seen by the leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party is astonishing. Usually, the death of any party leader, the leaders of all the parties leave the party protest and attend his funeral, but in the case of Mulayam Singh, the attitude of the BJP showed something special. There are two major reasons for that. Firstly, he had a close bond with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the manner in which the Prime Minister paid tribute to him soon after his death inspired BJP leaders. The second reason is the politics of Yadav votes in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which the BJP has been eyeing for the past several years.
On the death of Mulayam Singh, Prime Minister Modi tweeted and shared eight photos of himself with him and paid a heartfelt tribute to him. Not only this, Prime Minister Modi also paid tribute to Mulayam Singh during his speech in Bharuch’s public meeting and said that he had been blessed by Mulayam Singh in 2014, which is his trust. Keep in mind Mulayam Singh stood in the Lok Sabha and blessed Modi to become the Prime Minister for the second time. So, the Prime Minister also openly expressed his feelings.
When the SP founder was hospitalized, Rajnath Singh went to see him and even after his death, Rajnath Singh and Amit Shah paid tribute to him by visiting the hospital. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced three days of state mourning. On Monday, when Mulayam Singh’s body reached Uttar Pradesh from Delhi, the Chief Minister went and paid tribute to him. The next day, the Chief Minister was to go to Sitab Diara to participate in JP’s birth anniversary program along with Amit Shah. After attending it, he returned to Saifai and took part in the last rites. All the ministers and big leaders including his Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak attended the funeral.
On every platform of social media including Twitter and Facebook, BJP leaders paid tribute to Mulayam Singh with open hearts. At least three BJP leaders have paid tribute to Mulayam Singh by writing articles in English and Hindi newspapers. Among them is the national spokesperson of the BJP, Gaurav Bhatia, who was earlier in the SP. He paid tribute to Mulayam Singh by writing an article in an English newspaper. Former Rajya Sabha MP and Madhya Pradesh BJP president Prabhat Jha also wrote an article, while Uttar Pradesh BJP leader Shatrudra Prakash also wrote an article on Mulayam Singh. He has also been in SP earlier. Although the leaders of all parties paid tribute to Mulayam Singh openly, but the way BJP leaders took part in paying tribute to him or taking part in the funeral was surprising.
