For third year in a row, Saifai Mahotsav unlikely to be held in Lucknow

The festival was not held in 2007 and 2011 because the election code of conduct was in force but had a smooth run for the next years after that.

The annual Saifai Mahotsav is unlikely to be held for the third year in a row, in an apparent fallout of the political feud in the Samajwadi Party’s Yadav family.

The festival used to be held in the ancestral village of the Yadav family almost every year between December and January since the mid-1990s.

Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav’s nephew Ranvir Singh first held the festival at the block level in 1996. He died in 2002 and subsequently the then chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav scaled it up and named it after Ranvir who was the first block pramukh of Saifai.

The annual festival often courted controversy when it was held during the Samajwadi Party regime in the state due to issues like trade tax holidays for purchase of vehicles from Saifai during the Saifai festival. It also had the glamour factor with planeloads of Bollywood stars arriving to entertain at the festival.

Ranvir Singh’s 16 death anniversary falls on Tuesday. Like last year, there will be a small ceremony in the village, where tribute will be paid to him.

Till now, no one is talking about the festival that used to be held every year almost a month after the death anniversary.

Ranvir Singh’s son Tej Pratap Singh Yadav, who is the Samajwadi Party’s Mainpuri MP, held the death anniversary of the father in Saifai on Tuesday.

Samajwadi Party’s Badaun MP and the chairman of the Saifai Mahotsava organising committee, Dharmendra Yadav said: “We have not thought much over it. It will not be held this year too. All the top party leaders are busy with the Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Rajasthan assembly polls.”

The festival was not held in 2007 and 2011 because the election code of conduct was in force but had a smooth run for the next years after that.

But the festival ran into rough weather in January 2016 edition when the then chief minister Akhilesh Yadav did not attend the inauguration as Mulayam Singh Yadav had expelled two of Akhilesh’s close aides Sunil Singh Sajan and Anand Bhadauria on charges of anti-party activities in the panchayat polls.

Later, Mulayam revoked the suspension, and Akhilesh visited the festival at its grand finale when Ranveer Singh, Kareena Kapoor, Sonakshi Sinha, Sonam Kapoor, Arjun Kapoor, Parineeti Chopra, Saif Ali Khan, Ayushman Khurana, and several others performed.

However, the festival was not held in January 2017 as the Yadav’s family political feud had become intense by then.

The festival was also not held in January 2018 as Samajwadi Party had lost the elections and the feud continued.

Now, no one in Saifai is talking about the festival in the backdrop of Shivpal Yadav having founded his own political front--the Samajwadi Secular Morcha and the Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia).