By IANS,
Lucknow/New Delhi : The Samajwadi Party (SP) Tuesday expelled its high profile leaders Amar Singh and Jaya Prada for their anti-party activities. Former general secretary Amar Singh hit back within minutes to describe the expulsion as “a blessing in disguise”.
“Amar Singh and Jaya Prada, one Rajya Sabha member and the other Lok Sabha member, have been expelled from the Samajwadi Party for their anti-party activities,” newly-appointed SP general secretary Mohan Singh told reporters in Lucknow.
The parliamentary board of the party headed by party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, he said, decided to expel Amar Singh as “well as his close compatriot Jaya Prada from the primary membership of the party”.
The SP also suspended four Uttar Pradesh legislators — Madan Chauhan, Ashok Chandel, Sarvesh Singh and Pradeep Agarwal — known for their proximity to Amar Singh.
Amar Singh quickly responded to the latest decision by saying it was “dictatorial”.
“I had asked for sick leave from the party after 14 years of work… I wanted to take rest. The party cannot function in a dictatorial and feudal system,” Amar Singh told reporters in New Delhi minutes after Mohan Singh announced the decision.
“I have been called mad, shameless and scoundrel. This is what I got in return for 14 years of service,” he said, referring to Mohan Singh’s earlier remarks against him.
But he would not say anything to Mulayam Singh, Amar Singh declared.
“I will not say anything to Mulayam Singhji. He has blessed me. It is a blessing in disguise. He has liberated me.”
Mohan Singh said the party was now seeking legal opinion on how to throw Amar Singh and Jaya Prada out of parliament.
“We are seeking legal opinions. We will be writing a petition to the Rajya Sabha chairman and the Lok Sabha speaker on their expulsion from parliament,” he said, adding that anti-party statements also come under the purview of the anti-defection law.
He described Amar Singh’s entry into the party as “a capitalist design to weaken the socialist movement”.
Mohan Singh said about Jaya Prada’s statement at a press conference on Jan 31: “Besides spewing venom against the Samajwadi Party in general, she had also made objectionable remarks against the party leadership.”
He termed the Rampur MP a “misguided missile” of Amar Singh and said she was being “used” by the high-profile former SP general secretary.
The SP’s move comes weeks after Rajya Sabha member Amar Singh resigned from all party posts citing poor health. However, he had been writing on his blog and giving media interviews to say that the Samajwadi Party didn’t treat him well.
The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) refused to comment on the development.
Denying rumours that Amar Singh would join the NCP, spokesperson D.P. Tripathi said that both Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh were “friends” of the party’s leaders and it was an internal matter of the SP.
“The NCP will not interfere in this affair,” Tripathi told IANS.
Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan echoed him when she said: “This is a matter between Amar Singh and the SP.”
However, All India Congress Committee leader Satyavrat Chaturvedi, who in the past has criticised Amar Singh, said the expelled SP leader “neither had political future in the past nor now”.