Agra/New Delhi, Aug 17 - The Samajwadi Party is standing at ideological crossroads 17 years after its formation as it prepares for a three-day 'introspection meet' beginning Wednesday in Agra amid charges that it has been reduced to a family fiefdom and has lost its socialist moorings.

Formed after breaking away from the Janata Dal in October 1992 in Agra, the Samajwadi Party is looking for an ideological plank that could help it reinvent itself in changing times.

The April-May Lok Sabha elections saw its tally of seats come down from 38 to 21 out of a total 80 from Uttar Pradesh, the state where the party was born.

While several of its founding members have quit the party complaining it had lost its socialist moorings and become a family fiefdom - it is headed by former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav - even its Muslim votebank has been fast slipping away.

'The party is at a crossroads both ideologically and from the point of view of its votebank. It is worried with its loss in the assembly and Lok Sabha elections and the way certain segments, especially Muslims, have been moving away from the party,' Kanpur-based political analyst A.K. Verma told IANS.

Verma believes that in order to revive the party, 'Yadav will have to reconnect himself with the common man, bring democracy in the party organization and prevent it from becoming a personal fiefdom.'

Senior party leader Reoti Raman Singh said: 'This convention is to prepare a strategy for future to revitalise the party.' Singh was, however, confident that the party would form the government in Uttar Pradesh after the 2012 assembly polls.

But socialist leaders feel that Mulayam Singh Yadav's commitment to the ideals of socialism has been fading.

'If the older breed of Lohiaites and socialists have continued to keep their distance from the Samajwadi Party, it is because of Mulayam's confused and rather half-hearted commitment to values,' said former socialist leader Vinay Paliwal.

He said these very values had kept the socialist movement at the forefront of all struggles and enabled leaders like H.V. Kamath, George Fernandes, Madhu Limaye, S.M. Joshi, N.G. Goray and Kishan Patnaik to play a significant role in parliament.

Another former socialist, Ram Kishore, believes that 'Mulayam Singh's friendship with Amar Singh, Anil Ambani and Amitabh Bachchan has also been questioned in the party.