The Yadav family and Samajwadi Party workers on Monday travelled to Haridwar to immerse in Ganga the ashes of party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav, who had died on October 10 in a Gurugram hospital.
SP President Akhilesh Yadav, Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party chief and his uncle, Shivpal Singh Yadav, Akhilesh’s wife Dimple Yadav, Aparna Yadav, the younger daughter-in-law of Mulayam Singh, and other family members flew from Saifai airstrip to Jollygrant airport in Dehradun for their forward journey to Haridwar.
The 82-year-old SP founder had died in Gurugram’s Medanta Hospital after remaining in ICU on lifesaving drugs for close to a week.
The Yadav clan came together to pay last tributes to the departed leader who was also a former defence minister of the country.
The veteran socialist leader had been cremated with full state honours last Tuesday, near the place where his first wife Malti Devi was cremated in Saifai, his native village, in Etawah district.
His son Akhilesh Yadav had lit the funeral pyre in the village’s mela ground, where people lined up to see a glimpse of the grand leader, who had led Uttar Pradesh government four times as chief minister of the state.
According to the pictures shared on the Samajwadi Party's official Twitter handle, Akhilesh Yadav, Dimple Yadav, and Shivpal Singh Yadav were seen sitting together in the aircraft during their journey to Dehradun.
Shivpal Singh, who had joined hands with Akhilesh in the recent Assembly election and won the Jaswant Nagar seat on an SP ticket, had fallen out with his nephew after the polls.
Their bickering has been talked about frequently in political circles.
But since the party patron’s death, the uncle-nephew duo has been seen standing together on different occasions despite a breach in their relationship.
Former MP Dharmendra Yadav, party national general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav, and other family members also were present on the occasion.
Akhilesh's children also joined the family in the ritual and were seen standing by their parents in the ritual on the Ganga ghat in Haridwar.
Earlier in the day, Mulayam Singh's brother Abhay Ram Singh, Shivpal Yadav's son and state president of Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party, Aditya Yadav, former MP Tej Pratap Singh, and a family priest arrived at the Saifai airstrip in a convoy of cars.
According to Acharya Radha Mohan Mishra from Mathura-Vrindavan, who recited the ‘Garuda Purana’ in Saifai during rituals after the death, the immersion of the ashes in the holy river was done as per Vedic rituals.
The ‘Garuda Katha’ is being recited since last Wednesday in the presence of family members in Saifai.
Mishra said that ‘Garuda Path’ will continue till October 21 and will be concluded with a yagya for the peace of the departed.
The party also shared video and pictures showing Akhilesh Yadav sitting in a car with the urn containing the ashes.
(With PTI inputs)
