After days of verbal duel, Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) chief Om Prakash Rajbhar, whose party had contested recent assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh in alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP), finally parted ways with SP president Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday.
Akhilesh's estranged uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav, one of the founders of the SP who had merged his outfit with the SP on the eve of the assembly polls, declared on Saturday that he would be charting his own course and that he had severed all ties with the SP.
This comes after the SP released two separate letters earlier in the day saying in a sarcastic vein that the two leaders were "free" to join the parties where they could get "respect".
Rajbhar lashed out at Akhilesh and told reporters that he was not anybody's "slave" and declared that he would decide about any future alliance after consultation with his party leaders.
''Akhilesh needs people who never question him. I am not one of them,'' Rajbhar said, indicating that he might explore the possibility of electoral alliance with either the BSP or BJP in Lok Sabha polls due in 2024.
Rajbhar, whose party's six MLAs had supported NDA presidential nominee Droupadi Murmu, was given 'Y' category security on Friday.
Rajbhar had been attacking Akhilesh since SP's defeat in the recently held Lok Sabha by-polls in Azamgarh and Rampur seats, both of which were bastions of the party. Akhilesh, however, appeared to be indifferent to Rajbhar's threat and claimed that the latter had turned against him under 'pressure' from some ''outside elements''. ''We do not require advice from anyone...we can manage without the help of outsiders,'' he had said.
The SBSP had managed to win six seats. The SBSP, a caste-based party, enjoys the support of the 'Rajbhar' community, which forms around four per cent of the electorate in the state, especially in a dozen districts in the eastern UP region.
According to sources in the BJP here, the saffron party was wooing Rajbhar given his strong support base among his community members.