threetime chief minister chief of the samajwadi party and one of indias most powerful politicians these are some of the titles that mulayam singh yadav proudly holds born to a humble farmer sughad singh in saifai in 1939 mulayam was a wrestler and a teacher before turning into a fulltime politician mulayam is famous for jumping ships and shocking his political allies as well as rivals during his long political journey the result of skills he learned during his wrestling days he combined these skills with political acumen and india got one of its finest political brains mulayam started his political journey in 1960s after being deeply influenced by ram manohar lohia and his socialist ideology he became the member of uttar pradesh assembly for the first time in 1967 and since then there has been no looking back he started as a crusader for farmer rights and was jailed nine times during different agitations he was also influenced by former prime minister chaudhary charan singh who used to call him little napolean because of mulayams shrewdness and the way he dealt with his rivals he became chief minister of uttar pradesh for the first time in 1989 mulayam later switched loyalty and joined hands with former pm chandra shekhar to continue as chief minister with the support of congress his government however did not last long as congress withdrew support from chandra shekhar and his governments in 1991 resulting in byelections in which mulayam lost in 1992 he formed the samajwadi party and joined hands with mayawatis bahujan samaj party the following year to win the election and become chief minister for the second time the arrangement however soon developed cracks and mulayam lost power once again the cracks between sp and the bsp were so deep and visceral that mulayam created his greatest political adversary in his own home turf of up in the form of mayawati that rivalry shows no signs of abetting even after a quarter of a century mulayam got a chance to become chief minister for the third time in 2003 when bjp pulled out from the alliance government of mayawati who had won the election in 2002 mulayam gathered some independent legislators and smaller parties and became the chief minister different media reports hinted towards the role of bjp in this coup mulayam was then a lok sabha member and contested from gunnaur to become a member of the state assembly as mandated by the constitution he received 94 per cent of votes an unbroken record till date this time the samajwadi party government lasted for four years but lost the 2007 election to mayawati mulayam has always maintained a secular image and has been a darling of muslims who like him because of the shooting orders he gave on the hindu activists running towards the babri mosque to raze it in 1991 saifai mainpuri and kannauj have been his pocket boroughs but his political ambitions took him to central