Shivpal Yadav's new political outfit gets registered as Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party

LUCKNOW: Former minister and Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Yadav's newly-launched political front has been registered with the Election Commission as Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (PSP), said reports on Tuesday.

After the registration of his party, Shivpal, who is the younger brother of SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav, will now contest the upcoming general elections in 2019 alone. 

Shivpal had sometimes back launched his political front called the Samajwadi Secular Morcha which has now been registered as PSP (Lohiya).

He had earlier approached the Election Commission for registration of his new outfit.

The sources claim that Shivpal had moved an application for registration of his new outfit way back in 2017 but anticipating a truce with nephew Akhilesh Yadav and his prior position in the parent party, the SP leader did not pursue it aggressively. 

The sources also claimed that Shivpal had sought ''wheel'' as the party symbol which was allotted to the erstwhile Janata Dal. 

Shivpal plans to contest all 80 parliamentary constituencies in UP and has been mobilising disgruntled SP leaders in the Akhilesh Yadav-led party.

CP Rai and former Etawah MP Raghuraj Singh Shakya are among those who have recently joined SSM. 

Shivpal is still SP MLA from Jaswantnagar and has not relinquished his position.