Rumblings of dissatisfaction with the decision of the Samajwadi Party president, Mulayam Singh Yadav, not to support the Congress party can be heard in his ancestral village Safai in Etawah district.

The political upheaval in Delhi has left the Samajwadi Party vote-bank - the Muslims - disgruntled. A large number of Muslim population of Etawah - the city from where Mr. Yadav started his political career - now prefer their old guard, the Congress" "Twenty-five years after being like a wall behind him, we now feel we have been exploited," said an elderly Muslim in Etawah. The same sentiment echoes in Safai.

Mulayam Singh had become the Etawah College president in 1963 with the help of Muslim students, who are now drifting away from them. "Whatever has been done in Etawah is for the Yadavs. Muslims vote for him but no development work is done for them. We committed a mistake by leaving the Congress," said a Muslim resident of Emergency Hospital area in Etawah.

He had reasons to believe this. "After coming to power Mulayam had built a separate locality for Yadavs on the northern side of the railway station. We still live in the same conditions", he claimed.

What has been a result of this, in the eyes of the Muslims, is a clear distinction between them and the  Yadavs. "He cannot win elections without our help in UP; we would show him this in the elections", said a.60-year-Muslim PCO booth operator.

In Etawah city, Muslims constitute about 40 per cent of the total population. And here, like in the rest of UP, most of the votes are polled in favour of a particular party which they decide earlier ... (Source: The Statesman, 3 May, 1999)