New Delhi:
Like all break-ups, the split between Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh Yadav gets uglier with each day.
"I'm grateful to Mulayam Singh Yadav for setting me free," announced Amar Singh at a press conference on Monday. "I did not have the freedom to speak my mind. I am free from Mulayam's family's mismanagement. I will try to become Samajwadi from Mulayam-wadi," he quipped without a trace of a smile.
Amar Singh also clarified that he resigned from his posts in the Samajwadi Party on the advice of Mulayam's doctors. Last week, Amar Singh, with characteristic melodrama, shared that he had quit as the party's General Secretary. Over the weekend, Mulayam said he had accepted Amar Singh's resignation "with a heavy heart."
The rift between the once-inseparable leaders of the Samajawadi Party has been growing since the last general elections in May.
Amar Singh was livid with Mulayam's supporters for questioning the candidature from Rampur of actor Jaya Prada, an Amar Singh loyalist. Then late last year, Amar Singh was blamed by Mulayam's son, Akhilesh, for his wife's gigantic defeat in a by-election for the Ferozabad seat. In turn, Amar Singh had accused Mulayam and his family of being over-confident.
In the midst of the open assault on Mulayam on Monday, his once-trusted lieutenant said, "I will remain a Samajwadi Party soldier till the party allows." That's likely to annoy Mulayam. Especially since Amar Singh is reportedly planning his own mass contact programmes under the Samajwadi P arty banner. Sources say he hopes to emerge as a leader of thakurs, his own caste in UP ; he also allegedly wants to reach out to Muslim Backward Castes opposed to Mulayam, and poach on disgruntled leaders within the Samajwadi Party.
Through his press conference on Monday, Amar Singh was accompanied by movie star Sanjay Dutt who has already announced his resignation as General Secretary of the party. Other high-voltage party members like Jaya Prada and Jaya Bachchan, who are Members of Parliament, and Amar-loyalists, haven't yet indicated their plans.