Mulayam Singh Yadav, the founder of the Samajwadi Party and the three-time Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister died on Monday after spending several days in Gurugram’s Medanta Hospital. He was 82. His son Akhilesh Yadav confirmed the news with wire agency ANI. 

Mulayam Singh had been receiving treatment at the hospital since August 22 and was shifted to an Intense Care Unit on October 2. 

Who is Akhilesh Yadav?

Born into
political royalty, Akhilesh Yadav’s fate as a leader was sealed very early in
his life. The son of three-time Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Samajwadi
Party (SP) founder Mulayam Singh Yadav achieved tremendous success from a young
age, elected as a member of Parliament from the state’s Kannauj constituency at
the spritely age of 26 in the year 2000.

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The
trailblazer continued to set new benchmarks in the political landscape, which culminated
in him becoming youngest-ever chief minister of Uttar Pradesh at the age of 38
after a resounding SP victory in the 2012 assembly elections saw the party win 224
seats in the 403-member House.

But the result
of his toughest test yet will be declared on Thursday, March 10, when votes for
the 2022 UP assembly elections, along with four other states, will be counted. With
the BJP overwhelmingly winning in 2017, claiming 312 seats to oust the SP, the
stakes could not be higher as Yadav eyes a second chief ministerial term.

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Yadav was
born on July 1, 1973, in Saifai in UP’s Etawah district to Mulayam Singh Yadav
and Malti Devi. His mother suffered complications while giving birth to him and
was in a vegetative state, eventually dying in 2003.

He completed
his schooling in Saifai before moving to the Military School in Rajasthan’s
Dholpur, following which he graduated in Civil Environmental Engineering from
the JSS Science and Technology University in Mysore, Karnataka. He then
obtained his master’s degree in environmental engineering from the University
of Sydney, Australia.

Yadav worked
in a number of portfolios in the Congress-led Union government since being
elected to the 13th Lok Sabha in 2000, including in the Committee on
Food, Civil Supplies, and Public Distribution, Committee on Ethics, Committee
on Urban Development, etc.

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He resigned
as the Parliamentarian from Kannauj after being sworn-in as chief minister on
March 15, 2012, days after being appointed the SP president. He became a member of the state’s legislative council later that
month.

The highlights of his five-year term include the construction of the Agra-Lucknow
Expressway, the Lucknow Metro Rail project, the launching of the ‘UP 100 Police
Service’, ‘Women Power Line 1090’ and ‘108 Ambulance Service’.

He is
married to Dimple Yadav, a former Member of Parliament. He is the nephew of Shivpal Singh Yadav, a UP MLA and member of the Samajwadi Party.