By IANS,
New Delhi: Two days after his expulsion, Amar Singh Thursday accused the Samajwadi Party of using him like a “dustbin”, but insisted he had no differences with Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Amar Singh said he was being blamed for various decisions the Samajwadi Party took, including the controversial wooing of former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief minister Kalyan Singh, who presided over the 1992 razing of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya.
“My journey in the Samajwadi Party has been from a dustbin to being termed as garbage,” a visibly disgusted Amar Singh told reporters here. Flanking him was Lok Sabha MP Jaya Prada, who too was sacked by the Samajwadi Party with Amar Singh.
Denying the widely held impression that it was he who brought Kalyan Singh into the Samajwadi Party, Amar Singh said he was in a Singapore hospital when Mulayam Singh and Kalyan Singh shared a dais in 2009 in Agra.
Once seen as the most powerful man in the Samajwadi Party after Mulayam Singh, Amar Singh maintained that Mulayam Singh had been “misled” into sacking him.
“My relationship with Mulayam Singh was based on trust, confidence and mutual respect. I have no differences with him. My relations with him and his family will continue,” Amar Singh said about his former mentor.
“Akhilesh (Mulayam Singh’s son) was and is like a nephew,” he added, making a pointed reference to the help he (Amar Singh) gave to ensure that Akhilesh was educated in Australia.
In a clear attempt to divide the Mulayam Singh family, Amar Singh said he didn’t blame the former chief minister for his expulsion Tuesday, a few weeks after he resigned from all party posts citing ill health.
“Mulayam Singh was misled into sacking me,” he said.
The former Samajwadi Party general secretary, who underwent a kidney transplant last year, said there was no politics involved when he sought “sick leave” from the party and resigned from all posts.
“There was no politics behind my resignation. But they smelt a rat despite me being so unwell. Any specialist would tell you I needed a one-year rest from hectic political life after the kidney transplant,” he said.