Prateek Yadav biography — the life of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s younger son, who died at 38. Discover his age, wife Aparna Yadav, business career, family, and the cause of his sudden death.

The Quick Picture

• Younger son of Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav and half-brother of Akhilesh Yadav
• A businessman and fitness entrepreneur who stayed largely out of active politics
• Died in Lucknow on May 13, 2026, at the age of 38, from a blood clot

Who Is Prateek Yadav?

On the morning of May 13, 2026, news broke from Lucknow that Prateek Yadav, the younger son of the late Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav, had died at the age of 38. His death was sudden and, initially, surrounded by uncertainty, prompting a videographed post-mortem by a four-member medical team. The report later confirmed that he died after a large clot from his lower body blocked an artery, causing cardiorespiratory collapse.

Prateek Yadav was a member of one of Uttar Pradesh’s most powerful political dynasties, yet he was, in many ways, its quietest figure. While the Yadav name has shaped North Indian politics for decades, Prateek built his adult life almost entirely outside the political arena, choosing business, fitness entrepreneurship, and animal welfare over party platforms and election campaigns. He was the half-brother of former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and the husband of BJP leader Aparna Yadav.

His was a life lived at the edge of immense political power, but never quite inside it.

Quick Facts: Get to Know Prateek Yadav

Early Life & Background: Born Into a Political Dynasty

Prateek Yadav was born on July 7, 1987, the son of Mulayam Singh Yadav, the founder of the Samajwadi Party and a towering figure in Uttar Pradesh and national politics, and Sadhna Gupta, who was Mulayam Singh’s second wife.

His family circumstances were, for many years, a subject of public discretion. Mulayam Singh Yadav publicly acknowledged Sadhna Gupta as his second wife and Prateek as their son in 2007, during proceedings related to a disproportionate assets case. It was at that point that the wider public formally learned that the Samajwadi Party patriarch had a second wife and a younger son. Following the death in 2003 of Malti Devi, Mulayam Singh’s first wife and the mother of Akhilesh Yadav, Sadhna Gupta was given the status of his wife.

Growing up, Prateek occupied an unusual position within one of India’s most scrutinised political families. He was a Yadav, with everything that name carried in Uttar Pradesh, but he came of age somewhat apart from the central machinery of Samajwadi Party politics that surrounded his father and half-brother.

Education: A Degree from the University of Leeds

Prateek Yadav pursued his higher education abroad, studying at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. His time at a respected British university gave him an international academic foundation that distinguished his path from the more domestically rooted political education of many in his family.

After returning to India, he did not channel that education toward a political career. Instead, he turned toward business, eventually establishing himself in the real estate and fitness sectors in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh and the political heart of his family’s influence.

Career: The Businessman Who Stepped Away From Politics

A Deliberate Distance from Politics

The most defining feature of Prateek Yadav’s public life is what he chose not to do. Despite belonging to a family whose name is synonymous with Uttar Pradesh politics, Prateek largely stayed away from active political life. He did not contest elections, did not hold party office, and did not build a political profile in the manner that might have been expected of a son of Mulayam Singh Yadav.

This was a notable choice, and at times a publicly discussed one within the family’s orbit, particularly given that his wife, Aparna, was actively interested in politics.

Fitness Entrepreneurship and Iron Core Fit

Where Prateek did invest his energy was in business, and especially in fitness entrepreneurship. He owned and ran a gym in Lucknow called Iron Core Fit, and was known in local business circles for his genuine interest in the fitness industry. Fitness was not merely a commercial venture for him; it appeared to be a personal passion that he built into an enterprise.

He was also associated with the real estate sector in Lucknow, operating within the city’s property and business environment.

Animal Welfare and Jeev Ashray

Beyond business, Prateek Yadav devoted considerable effort to animal welfare. He founded and ran an organisation named Jeev Ashray (also referenced as Jeevaashraya Foundation), which worked on the rescue, treatment, and care of stray dogs. On his social media, he described himself first as the father of his dog “Dulari,” and expressed a wish to “see a world without oppression,” urging care for all living beings.

This dimension of his life, the quiet, sustained commitment to vulnerable animals, offers perhaps the clearest window into the kind of person he was away from the weight of the family name.

Career Timeline & Major Milestones

Key Takeaways

• Prateek Yadav was the rare member of a major political dynasty who consciously chose business and social work over electoral politics
• His fitness venture, Iron Core Fit, and his animal welfare organisation, Jeev Ashray, defined his public identity far more than his family’s political legacy
• His marriage to Aparna Yadav placed him at an unusual political crossroads, with a wife active in the BJP and a family rooted in the rival Samajwadi Party
• His sudden death at 38 closed one of the quieter chapters of the Yadav family story

Who Is Prateek Yadav’s Wife, Aparna Yadav?

Prateek Yadav married Aparna Bisht, now widely known as Aparna Yadav, in 2011. The couple has one daughter together.

Aparna Yadav became a prominent public figure in her own right. Originally associated with the Samajwadi Party, she contested the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election on an SP ticket from the Lucknow Cantonment seat, though she did not win. In January 2022, in a move that drew significant national attention, she joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the principal political rival of her father-in-law’s Samajwadi Party.

Her political journey created one of the more unusual family-political dynamics in Uttar Pradesh, with Aparna active in the BJP while the broader Yadav family remained the face of the Samajwadi Party. Throughout this, Prateek himself remained outside the political fray.

How Did Prateek Yadav Die?

Prateek Yadav died on the morning of May 13, 2026, in Lucknow. According to hospital authorities, doctors received information at around 5 a.m. that he was unwell, and a medical team responded. He was brought to Civil Hospital in critical condition, where his death was confirmed by the hospital’s director, Dr. GP Gupta.

Because the death was sudden, and because sources indicated he had been suffering from a lung-related condition for some time, the circumstances initially generated speculation. To address this, authorities arranged for the post-mortem to be conducted by a four-member team of doctors, with the entire procedure videographed for transparency.

The post-mortem report ultimately settled the matter. It concluded that Prateek Yadav died because a large blood clot from his lower body travelled and blocked an artery, causing cardiorespiratory collapse. The findings effectively ended the speculation that had briefly surrounded his death.

What Is Prateek Yadav’s Net Worth?

There is no officially confirmed or independently verified net worth figure for Prateek Yadav. As a businessman operating in Lucknow’s real estate and fitness sectors, and as a member of a prominent political family, he had clear business interests, but he did not make personal financial disclosures of the kind required of elected officials, since he never held public office.

Any specific net worth figure circulating online should therefore be treated as unverified estimation rather than confirmed fact. What can be said with confidence is that he was an established businessman with ventures in property and fitness, operating within one of Uttar Pradesh’s most prominent families.

Family, Loss and the Yadav Legacy

Prateek Yadav’s final years were marked by profound family loss. In July 2022, his mother, Sadhna Gupta, passed away at a hospital in Gurugram after a prolonged illness. Just three months later, in October 2022, his father, Mulayam Singh Yadav, the founder of the Samajwadi Party and one of the most consequential politicians in modern Uttar Pradesh history, also passed away.

Within a span of months, Prateek had lost both his parents. His own death in May 2026, at just 38, came less than four years later, adding another chapter of loss to a family that has remained constantly in the national spotlight.

He is survived by his wife, Aparna Yadav, and their daughter.

Conclusion

Prateek Yadav’s life resists the usual shape of a political-family biography. He carried one of the most powerful surnames in Uttar Pradesh, and he could have built a political career on it at almost any point. He chose, instead, to run a gym, invest in property, and rescue stray dogs.

Whether that choice reflected a lack of political ambition, a deliberate desire for a quieter life, or simply a different sense of what mattered, only those close to him could say. What the public record shows is a man who described himself, on his own social media, not as a politician’s son but as the father of a dog he loved, someone who wished for a world with less oppression for all living beings.

He died at 38, far younger than the long lives his parents lived. The Yadav name will continue in Uttar Pradesh politics, as it has for decades. But the particular path Prateek Yadav walked, adjacent to that power yet apart from it, ended quietly in a Lucknow hospital on a May morning.