Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav, who died at a Gurugram hospital on Monday, was cremated at his native Saifai village in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday afternoon. Thousands of supporters thronged the cremation ground where Mulayam's son and party's current president Akhilesh Yadav lit the pyre.
The former chief minister's mortal remains were brought back to his village on Monday evening. Leaders from across the political spectrum, including Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, paid their respects to the veteran leader who was ailing for months before he breathed his last at the age of 82 on Monday.
With hundreds queued up for the final darshan amid the drizzle, Yadav's body was moved around 10 am Tuesday from the house to a bigger hall on the Mela Ground premises, around one km away, to allow people to pay their last respects.
Frequent chants of "netaji amar rahe, amar rahe amar rahe (long live netaji!)" by lakhs of people rent the air.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and former Madhya Pradesh CM Kamal Nath, Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, Telugu Desam Party chief N. Chandrababu Naidu, former Union Minister of State Praful Patel and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav were among dignitaries who paid their tributes to the socialist leader.
Actor and Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan, BJP leader Rita Bahuguna Joshi, Yoga guru Baba Ramdev were also present at the last rites ceremony of the SP patriarch.
