Amar Singh, Jaya Prada expelled from SP

Calling it a "capitalist and communalist invasion" Samajwadi Party (SP) on Wednesday expelled former national general secretary, Amar Singh and MP Jaya Prada from the party. Four UP MLAs associated with Amar Singh have also been expelled. Pankaj Jaiswal reports.

Calling it a "capitalist and communalist invasion" Samajwadi Party (SP) on Wednesday expelled former national general secretary, Amar Singh and MP Jaya Prada from the party. The party would also petition the Lok Sabha speaker and Rajya Sabha chairman to terminate memberships of the two considering their "anti party activities" as defection. It also announced suspension of memberships of four UP MLAs associated with Amar Singh.

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Mohan Singh, who replaced Amar Singh as a new national general secretary of the party announced this at a press conference in Lucknow soon after the first meeting of the newly constituted Parliamentary Board on Tuesday.

Singh said: "I have consulted medical experts. They said that no kidneys fail due to doing campaigning for a party. They fail when a person does not have proper lifestyle and living. So if Amar Singh does not mend them, then even the foreign kidneys he is surviving on would reject him." Amar Singh had been saying that his kidneys suffered because of the party and Jaya Prada in Delhi on Sunday said that if anything happened to Amar Singh, the party would be responsible.

"Jaya Bachchan till date has not spoken a work against the party. And the party does not believe in victimizing anyone just because he or she has family relations with a dissident. She had been gentle and decent. While Abu Azim Azmi has publicly said that he is with the party," said Mohan Singh.

When asked about the status of Sanjay Dutt in the party, Singh said that Dutt is not even worth taking a notice of by the party.

The party charged Jaya Prada of "spitting venom" against the party at a press conference she held in Delhi on Sunday. It called her "a guided missile of Amar Singh". The charge on Amar Singh is "for doing anti party activities for past one and a half month and floating a parallel organization called Lok Manch."

Singh said that the party considers that Amar Singh and his associates have damaged secular image of the party by capitalist and communist invasion.

He commented: "The party decided to do the 'surgery' so that the 'disease' does not spread any more in the party."

In order to take the party out of the shock that it was in last one-and-a-half month, the party would hold a State level special convention in the state capital. The convention would be held this month. The party national president, Mulayam Singh Yadav always holds such special emergency sessions whenever the party faces any crisis. The party to re-strengthen itself down to the grass roots levels would start sending its leaders on extensive tours.