Biography of Mulayam Singh Yadav

(November 22, 1939)

One of India's veteran politicians, Mulayam Singh Yadav was born on November 22, 1939, in a peasant family at Saintai village in the Etawah district of Uttar Pradesh. In 1954, on the call of Ram Manohar Lohia, he took part vigorously in farmers' agitation against the Congress government and was imprisoned for a day.

In 1963, being an ardent follower of Lohia, Yadav was chosen as the President of K.K. Degree College Students' Union and leader of Lohia's student outfit, Samajvadi Yuvajan Sabha. Yadav made entry into the U.P. Assembly in 1967, as M.L.A. on a Samyukta Society party ticket. He had been jailed for 19 months under M.I.S.A. during the emergency in 1975.

In 1982, he again became a member of the Vidhan Parishad and leader of the opposition. In 1989 he became Chief Minister of U.P. cornering the B.J.P propaganda of Ram Janma Bhumi Barbri Masjid. In 1996, he became the Defense Minister in the Deve Gowda Ministry. He still is a major force to reckon with, in the Uttar Pradesh politics as well as national level politics.