The Yogi Adityanath government on Saturday recommended that former Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Yadav’s security cover be upgraded, extending another favour to a politician alleged to be behind a multi-crore-rupee irrigation scam the Uttar Pradesh chief minister had wanted probed last year.

Shivpal, brother of Samajwadi patron Mulayam Singh Yadav, was public works and irrigation minister between 2012 and 2016 in the government led by his nephew Akhilesh Yadav when the alleged Gomti riverfront scam is said to have taken place.

He has since floated a new party after a turf war with Akhilesh brought out long-simmering differences within the party.

Although he has ruled out any alliance with the BJP, Shivpal has said his Samajwadi Secular Morcha would field candidates in all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state in next year’s parliamentary elections.

Observers said the new party, floated in August, was bound to weaken Akhilesh, who is gearing for an alliance with Mayawati’s BSP “to prevent Prime Minister Narendra Modi from coming back to power”.

A senior BJP member said his party leaders wanted all rival votes to be divided.

“Winning the 2019 election might be tough for the BJP. But we can return to power by diving Muslim, OBC and Dalit votes. This is possible if we manage splits in rival parties and creation of more leaders like Shivpal,” he told this paper. “In return, we will give them more than what they demand.”

Saturday’s recommendation to the Union home ministry to upgrade Shivpal’s security from “Y” to “Z-plus” means he would have 55 personnel, including 10 NSG commandos, to guard him, instead of the nine policemen and two commandos earlier.

“We have recommended Z-plus security for Shivpal on the basis of intelligence reports,” an officer in the home department said, asking not to be named.

Shivpal too has claimed a threat to his life.

The state government’s move came a day after it allotted Shivpal a palatial bungalow at the upmarket Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg in Lucknow.

Last year, however, Adityanath had recommended a CBI probe into the Rs 1,500-crore-rupee Gomti riverfront scam, months after assuming charge as chief minister in March 2017.

Adityanath had then said those in the Samajwadi government who were involved in the alleged scam would be brought to book. The chief minister set up a committee under a retired high court judge and the government registered cases against eight officers of the irrigation department on the basis of a 74-page report in November 2017 before handing over the case to the CBI.

The central agency had actively probed the case but has been out of the scene since July this year. Shivpal floated his Samajwadi Secular Morcha a month later.

“We know very well that Shivpal is helping the BJP. Such a division of votes will damage the secular forces,” said Shahid Badra Falahi, the founder president of the banned Students’ Islamic Movement of India.

Falahi, a Unani doctor who lives in Azamgarh, is pursuing a case to get the ban on his organisation revoked.