The extended clan of Mulayam Singh Yadav does not have the best record when it comes to transparency in governance or even the integrity in public life. Now, they have come out as hypocrites too. Yesterday, Akhilesh Yadav came out with a ‘vision document’ of Samajwadi Party (SP) for the elections. The SP leader vexed eloquent about how the rich were hoarding India’s wealth and there was little left for the poor, because, in Samajwadi theory, wealth is a zero-sum game. Promptly offering a solution for the same, the Yadav leader suggested taxing the ‘rich upper caste’ to rectify the disequilibrium. However, in this ‘vision document’, he failed to include families such as his, whose wealth surpasses most Upper caste Indian families.

Akhilesh Yadav led SP has announced to levy tax of 2% on the upper caste elites whose total wealth of household is more than Rs 2.5 crore, after coming to power. Citing terms such as “mahaparivartan through social justice”, the Yadav leader aims to “mobilize minority groups”. “The elite and the rich dismiss us as power hungry. These are all lies designed to maintain and perpetuate oppressive power structures to benefit the few,” the ‘vision document’ reads.

“Here are the facts: India is perhaps the most unequal country in the world. The rich have become super rich – in fact, the richest 10% of the population (uniformly upper caste) owns more than 60% of India’s wealth. And the poor have struggled with income growth well below inflation. Half the population has just 8% of India’s wealth, and are getting poorer every day,” reads the Samajwadi Party ‘vision document’ on the first page.

While the document is correct on a few of its stated facts, the SP omitted quite a few of the others. Starting with the fact that the Samajwadi Party is the richest among the regional parties across the country. The SP declared a total income of Rs 82.76 crore in the year 2016-17. This is 25.78 percent of the total income of 32 regional parties in the country. Moreover, the party is at the forefront with regards to spending too, having spent a total of 147.10 crore rupees.

Mulayam Singh Yadav, founder of SP is under suspicion for owning benami property worth several hundred crores. While he has declared assets worth Rs 15 crore, his disproportionate assets’ case is currently under the scanner of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Apart from the founder and the president, Mulayam’s daughter in law, Aparna Yadav, while filing of nomination from Lucknow Cantt. during the state elections had declared assets worth Rs 22.95 crore, making her the richest candidate of Lucknow. Dimple Yadav, wife of Akhilesh Yadav and Mulayam’s other daughter in law has declared wealth amounting to Rs 2 crores, without having any known source of income. In 2004, the net worth of Dimple’s movable and immovable property was a mere Rs 12 lakh. Somehow over the years this wealth has accumulated during her father in law’s and husband’s regime in the state.

Another example of a “minority group representative”, and SP’ mahagathbandhan partner is Bahujan Samajwadi party leader, Mayawati. SP’s state unit Rajendra Chaudhary said,

“Ten years ago, she only had a few thousands. Now, she is worth more than Rs 3,000 crore.”

If Akhilesh Yadav is considering wealth redistribution through taxation, he and his family will have to shell out more than the majority of “upper caste Hindu”. The Yadav family is one of the very ‘filthy rich’ against whom Akhilesh Yadav is sermonizing.

Padma Bhushan recipient and author, Dr David Frawley, citing the poor state of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar after years of rule by socialist parties said this mentality has led states like Uttar Pradesh to remain backward. It is, in fact, Akhilesh Yadav and his family who are the richest of the rich.

A replay of the old crony socialism of the late twentieth century that kept UP and Bihar the most backward states in India. Akhilesh Yadav and company are among the richest of the rich and gained more from their time in power than the poor ever did.https://t.co/D1uArIo5Tq — Dr David Frawley (@davidfrawleyved) April 5, 2019

Political analyst Anshul Saxena taking a dig at Samajwadi party said that instead of taxing the elites, why not impose tax on the rich politicians who are by far the richest group of people in India.

Now Tax has Religion & Caste. Akhilesh Yadav proposes 2% tax on ‘Upper Caste Elites’ in SP Manifesto to tackle ‘Economic Disparity’. What kind of Socialism is this? Caste doesn't decide someone's economic status. Why not 2% tax on rich Politicians? — Anshul Saxena (@AskAnshul) April 5, 2019

Akhilesh Yadav, by this manifesto, shows the deep regressive attitude he has towards a section of the society. Instead of curbing the evils of casteism prevalent in the country, he seeks to encourage this regressive attitude and is being downright discriminatory towards the citizens. The family selfishly wanted to preserve their own self-interests by wanting to be exempted from their own introduced tax and favoring certain castes; all in all playing vote bank politics. In this attempt of dirty politics, the Yadav clan has been extremely prejudicial against the upper castes. Just because they are not a minority, doesn’t mean it is okay to discriminate against them. The Right to Equality granted by the Indian constitution that the minorities love to cite all the time is equally applicable to the upper castes as well. Had he been a fair and just leader, the tax proposed to be introduced should have been equally applicable to all the citizens on the basis of economic returns, and not limited to a certain caste. But such an expectation from a party such as SP, who in their time have done nothing but accumulated personal wealth and played off the castes against each other; is unimaginable.