Lucknow, Dec. 29: A new list of 235 Samajwadi Party candidates was issued this evening from the office of a trust opened by chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, fuelling speculation that the son was ready for a direct battle with Mulayam Singh Yadav.

The Samajwadi chief had yesterday released a list of 325 candidates, which left out 53 sitting MLAs and many ministers loyal to Akhilesh but had names of people close to the chief minister's uncle and rival Shivpal Yadav. Mulayam had issued the list in Lucknow, with Shivpal by his side, while the chief minister was on a tour of Mahoba and Jhansi.

Akhilesh met his father this morning to express his disagreement with his loyalists being denied tickets. Shivpal, who is Mulayam's younger brother and the party's state president, was present at the meeting.

Names of the chief minister's loyalists dropped yesterday made it to the list distributed from the office of the Janeshwar Mishra Trust in Lucknow, which was opened by Akhilesh after he was replaced by Shivpal as the party's state president in September. Most of his aides sidelined by Shivpal have got space in this office.

The unsigned list said: "The list of 235 candidates of chief minister Akhilesh Yadav includes 171 sitting MLAs and 64 others for those seats which were not represented by Samajwadi Party."

It added: "The candidates on the remaining seats would be announced soon."

Uttar Pradesh has 403 Assembly seats.

This afternoon, over 100 MLAs and MLCs met Akhilesh at his official residence. Interestingly, they included Balram Yadav, an MLC who is known to be close to Mulayam's second wife and the chief minister's stepmother Sadhana Gupta. Many in the party believe that Sadhana, who nurtures political ambitions for her son Prateek, has set up Shivpal to work against Akhilesh.

Brijlal Sonkar, an MLA from Azamgarh who was present at the meeting, said he would help whosoever was fielded by the party. "My party boss has yet to decide a candidate on my seat. But the CM has asked me to campaign for whoever gets ticket. I am ready for that. I want Akhilesh to become chief minister again."

But Indal Kumar, another MLA, said the chief minister would release a parallel list of candidates. "He asked us to get ready to fight on our respective seats.... We will contest with Akhilesh as our face if the Samajwadi Party does not field us officially," he said.

Tej Narayan Pandey, MLA from Ayodhya and minister of state for entertainment tax, added: "I will contest from Ayodhya with the blessings of Akhilesh."

Tej Narayan, who has been known to physically assault the chief minister in the party, does not figure on Mulayam's list but is there on the list released in the evening.

Sources said Akhilesh had handed his father a list of 367 candidates a few days ago. "There are more than 300 names common (with the list Mulayam released), including 80 candidates who are in the core team of Akhilesh," a senior party leader said on condition of anonymity.

"There would be no taker for the BJP and the BSP if we have two candidates on each seat. While one can campaign on party symbol, the other would be Independent and both would contest to make Mulayam's son chief minister again. Maybe one of our candidates on each seat will withdraw at the eleventh hour," he laughed.

But Ram Gopal Yadav, Mulayam's cousin and party general secretary, said in Firozabad that some leaders didn't want Akhilesh in the party. Ram Gopal does not get along with Shivpal.