By saddling up the bicycle, Akhilesh Yadav has won a race that Indira Gandhi could not decades ago.
The cycle would catch up with Indira years later while she was fighting her second battle for political survival but - after almost losing out in long-distance translation - the now-familiar " haath" stopped the two-wheeler in its tracks. In handing the cycle symbol to Akhilesh, the Election Commission has relied upon its 1971 order after the Congress had split in 1969, making numerical strength of the elected representatives the decider. Essentially, what it means is that the parliamentary wing, not the organisational machinery, is the party.
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