At the Samajwadi Party manifesto release function on January 20, many party veterans were confounded over the presence of several new faces on the podium along with Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son Akhilesh Yadav. Quiet and disciplined, they carefully stood in their allotted spaces though eager to carry out any instruction from Akhilesh Yadav.
Many of the same faces were present at Akhilesh Yadav's press conference on Tuesday, heralding a new line of leadership in the party, except two, Abhishek Mishra and Tej Narain Pandey. Having done his Phd from Cambridge University, Mishra was a professor at IIM-Ahmedabad where he taught for six years before being persuaded by Akhilesh Yadav to join politics. This led SP, especially Akhilesh Yadav, largely avoiding hitting out against any of its political rivals. Tej Narain Pandey (aka Pawan Pandey) was among the rare chosen few from Akhilesh's band of followers, who got the party ticket to contest from the important seat of Ayodhya. Pandey, former Lucknow University student union vice-president, was in the news all through the elections as he got married during the election campaign. While defeating BJP in the symbolicly important Ayodhya seat, Pandey is also very close to Akhilesh.
SP insiders say that around 2003-04, when Akhilesh was emerging out of his fathers shadow, Pandey grew close to him by the virtue of being in Lucknow and hanging around Akhilesh's residence. Present on the stage during the manifesto release and Tuesday's event were Sunil Yadav, Ananad Bhadaouria and Nafees Ahmed, who are Akhilesh's eye and ears to the ground. Sunil Yadav has stayed with Akhilesh even after the SP was routed in 2007 and the Yadav family members had little say in the party affairs in the presence of the high-flying Amar Singh.
Instead of becoming a follower of Amar Singh, like most youth leaders did, Sunil Yadav kept his loyalty to Akhilesh.