Lucknow, Oct. 19: Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav has decided to start a state-wide poll campaign yatra from November 3, putting in jeopardy his father and Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav's plans for a grand unity show in Lucknow on November 5.

Akhilesh's move comes at a time he is locked in a power struggle with uncle Shivpal Yadav, the state party president, with Mulayam seen as siding largely with his younger brother.

Mulayam has been planning a grand show on the party's 25th anniversary on November 5 and has declared the entire family would be there to present a united face.

Akhilesh, who revealed his yatra plan in a letter to Mulayam today, has not explicitly written he would be absent from the Lucknow event but is understood to be implying so.

"The purpose of this letter is to make it clear that Akhilesh will stay away from the silver jubilee programme," a senior Samajwadi politician who didn't want to be identified told The Telegraph.

"Shivpal had conceived the programme and Gayatri Prasad Prajapati (a minister on the opposite side of the feud from Akhilesh) is its convener."

The source said Akhilesh had verbally set his father a condition for his attending the silver jubilee when he met Mulayam this afternoon to hand the letter over.

"Akhilesh said he would think about deferring his yatra to a date after November 5 only if the suspension of all the youth wing leaders were revoked."

Shivpal had last month suspended a host of Samajwadi youth leaders loyal to Akhilesh.

Some 32 other youth leaders of the party wrote to Mulayam yesterday declaring they would boycott the November 5 programme "in protest against the suspensions" and "reconfirming our confidence in the leadership of Akhilesh Yadav". Among those who signed it were an MLA and two members of the legislative council.

"I had planned to hold a Samajwadi Vikas Rath Yatra from October 3 as part of the poll campaign but could not because of certain reasons," Akhilesh's letter to Mulayam, of which this newspaper has a copy, says.

"All the political parties are now engaged in campaigning. Intending to form the government (again), I'm going to start the 'Samajwadi Vikas Rath Yatra - from Development to Victory' from November 3."

The letter, written in Hindi on the chief minister's official pad that carries his letterhead, concludes: "The details of the yatra would be sent to the district presidents of the Samajwadi Party and the party workers from time to time."

Copies of the letter have been faxed to Shivpal and party general secretary and spokesperson Ram Gopal Yadav, Mulayam's cousin, who is said to be on Akhilesh's side in the feud. It was Akhilesh's sacking of then mining minister Prajapati, a confidant of Mulayam's second wife Sadhana Gupta, which had triggered the latest round of the family strife on September 12. Prajapati had been accused of encouraging illegal mining.

On September 13, Mulayam replaced Akhilesh with Shivpal as state Samajwadi president. Akhilesh retaliated by stripping Shivpal of the public works, irrigation and revenue departments.

He seemed to have won when Shivpal quit the cabinet and his party post. Akhilesh then joined his father in rejecting both resignations and signalling a truce.

Shivpal then suspended half-a-dozen leaders of the party's youth organisations who were collectively known as "Team Akhilesh". These leaders had been accused of criticising Mulayam for removing Akhilesh as state party president.

Mulayam later intervened and made Akhilesh chairman of the state parliamentary board with the promise that he would get to choose the Assembly poll candidates. Akhilesh returned Shivpal his ministries except the key portfolio of public works.

He also re-inducted Prajapati into his cabinet but gave him the transport ministry while keeping the mining portfolio with himself.