SP crisis eases after Ram Gopal Yadav’s apology

The crisis in the Samajwadi Party seems to have eased after party president Mulayam Singh and his cousin brother and general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav spoke on Monday to Amar Singh, who has accepted an invitation to attend a party function in Safai next week.

Speaking to The Hindu over telephone from London, Mr. Amar Singh said Mr. Yadav “apologised” for “hurting” him while Mr. Mulayam Singh invited him to attend the Safai “mahotsav” in his hometown. The party chief had already declared that Mr. Amar Singh’s resignation from key party posts would not be accepted, overruling his brother (Mr. Yadav) who suggested on Saturday that Mr. Amar Singh’s resignation should be accepted. This had evoked strong reaction from Mr. Amar Singh’s supporters.

Reacting to the call here on Monday by a few Muslim MLAs, including Shahid Manzoor (Meerut), Iqbal Mahmood (Sambhal), Mehboob Ali (Amroha), for his ouster from the party, Mr. Amar Singh said that after Kalyan Singh’s clarification that it was Mr. Mulayam Singh who wanted to field his ‘bahu’ from Firozabad in the Lok Sabha by-poll, the Muslim members should be “satisfied”. “When Kalyan Singh was invited to attend the SP convention in Agra, I was not even in India,” he said.

Asserting that he would not take back his resignation which he gave on health grounds, Mr. Amar Singh said, “in fact if Mr. Mulayam Singh allows me I’d like to quit my Rajya Sabha seat as well because I am under a lot of pressure working from 9 a.m. till late evening. But if I do that the seat might go to [arch rival] the Bahujan Samaj Party.”

Denying that he was going to float a new party or join any other, Mr. Amar Singh said: “I will never leave Mr. Mulayam Singh. I have only resigned from party posts on health grounds and will continue to serve the party as an ordinary worker.”