Party also expels four MLAs; Rajya Sabha MP Jaya Bachchan offers to quit
After month-long squabbling, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav finally decided to get rid of Amar Singh — his close associate for over a decade — and the party’s glamour bandwagon.
Singh and his protégé, actor Jaya Prada, were today expelled from the SP for “anti-party activities” but both would continue to enjoy their seat in Parliament. Singh is a Rajya Sabha MP, while Jaya Prada won the Rampur Lok Sabha seat from Uttar Pradesh in 2009. Along with them, four SP MLAs, perceived as members of the “Singh camp”, were also expelled today.
“I want to thank Mulayam Singh. I am blessed by him. He has given me liberation,” Amar Singh said after his expulsion.
Calling the expulsion of Singh and Jaya Prada wrong, the party’s Rajya Sabha MP, Jaya Bachchan, also offered to resign. “If they want me to leave, then they should ask,” she said.
“I am sad and hurt. This is a very wrong decision and would hurt the party in future,” Bachchan added.
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Sanjay Dutt — another actor — has already distanced himself from the party.
Amar Singh, has, meanwhile, hinted that he may float his own outfit.
“Before the disease spreads further, the party decided to undertake a corrective surgery,” party spokesman Mohan Singh told reporters after the SP Parliamentary Board, chaired by Mulayam Singh Yadav, met in Lucknow to expel Amar Singh and Jaya Prada.
Mohan Singh also said that this step was to “free the party from intruders” who wanted to “dent” its socialist image.
In the coming Parliament session, the SP will witness a divided force in both Houses. This is likely to affect the party’s performance, as it tries to play the role of an Opposition party while being an “outside supporter” of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) at the Centre.
According to SP sources, the party is trying to make ‘course corrections’ to go back to its original policies and programmes.
Last month, Amar Singh had resigned as SP general secretary and also from the party’s parliamentary board, citing “health reasons”. But he also didn’t forget to slam Yadav’s family, especially his son, Akhilesh and brother Ramgopal Yadav for publicly criticising him.
Amar Singh’s relations with the SP supremo hit a low last year when Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple lost the Lok Sabha by-election from Ferozabad, and the Yadav family started blaming Amar Singh for the embarrassing defeat.