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Amar Singh named SP national gen secy
LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on Tuesday named Amar Singh the party general secretary, a move seen as a setback to chief minister Akhilesh Yadav
LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on Tuesday named Amar Singh the party general secretary, a move seen as a setback to chief minister Akhilesh Yadav who had opposed the Rajya Sabha member’s return to the party.
The surprise move and the way it was conveyed — Mulayam issued a handwritten note from Delhi which was released by state unit president Shivpal Yadav in Lucknow — is a signal that the SP patriarch is taking control of the party.
“I appoint you as the national general secretary of the party and hope that you will play a significant role in the party for 2017 UP assembly elections and also in strengthening the party,” the note read.
In another blow to the young chief minister, the party decided Mulayam, and not Akhilesh, would kick off SP’s campaign for the Uttar Pradesh election due early next year.
The party had been caught in a damaging power struggle between Mulayam’s son Akhilesh and younger brother Shivpal. Part of the crisis has been attributed to Akhilesh’s sour ties with Amar Singh, a close aide of his father who returned to party recently and was nominated to the Rajya Sabha.
“I will no longer refer to that ‘outsider’ as uncle,” Akhilesh had said in a veiled reference to Singh, blaming him for the family feud. Singh is considered close to Shivpal and his return was opposed by Akhilesh and other party leaders.
The differences between the two came out in the open last week, when Akhilesh took away three portfolios from Shivpal hours after Mulayam removed the chief minister as the UP party chief and named his brother to the position.
Mulayam managed an uneasy truce between them when he asked Akhilesh to take back Shivpal in the cabinet and accept him as the UP party chief.
Two days after taking charge, Shivpal on Monday expelled seven youth leaders close to Akhilesh for alleged indiscipline and readily accepted the resignations of more than 20 functionaries who quit in protest.
On Tuesday, he called a meeting to plan the party’s October 8 rally in Azamgarh, Mulayam’s Lok Sabha constituency. The rally is the first in a series of meetings to launch the party’s campaign. It would showcase Mulayam as the “party”, Shivpal as the man in control of the organisation in the state and Akhilesh as the chief ministerial face, said an MLA who attended the meeting.
The party is yet to announce its chief ministerial candidate – it didn’t name one ahead of the 2012 election – but on October 8 some indications are expected.
In an interview to HT on Monday, Shivpal had said Akhilesh would be the CM candidate but the chief minister’s supporters dismissed the remarks as damage control after mass sackings and resignations of young leaders.
Akhilesh, who had put off his rath yatra to October 3, would embark on it only after the Azamgarh rally, the MLA said.
AMAR THANKS MULAYAM FOR ELEVATION
Speaking exclusively to HT, Amar Singh said he was thankful to Netaji for the confidence reposed in him, but refused to comment on the souring of ties within the Mulayam parivar.
He said he was also thankful to chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and state president Shivpal Singh Yadav for his elevation in the party’s hierarchy.
“Netaji would not have appointed me as national general secretary without consulting them,” he said. On reservations of Prof Ram Gopal Yadav, who is also a national general secretary, he said he would not like to comment at this juncture.
”Notwithstanding media speculation and public outcry over the feud in UP’s first family, things have turned positive for everyone concerned,” he said.
He said he had no vested interest in the party and had always enjoyed cordial relations with the Yadavs, especially Mulayam. “I neither craved for entry into Rajya Sabha nor the position that I have been honoured with,” he said.
