Samajwadi Party supremo has appointed the controversial Rajya Sabha MP Amar Singh as the national general secretary of the party. The letter appointing Amar Singh as national general secretary was hand written by Dr Mulayam Singh on his letter head of the Member of Parliament and issued on Tuesday. Amar Singh is considered close to the SP state president Shivpal Yadav.
The letter released to the media said ``you have been appointed as the national general secretary of the party and we expect that you will put all your efforts to ensure win of the party in the 2017 assembly elections in UP.” Amar Singh will now be the third general secretary of the party along with Ram Gopal Yadav and Azam Khan. Both Ram Gopal and Azam Khan are vehemently opposed to Amar Singh and were instrumental in expulsion of the wily Tahkur from the party in January 2010.
This is the third consecutive setback for the chief minister Akhilesh Yadav in the last three days ever since the feud in the first family of the Samawadi the erupted on September 11. On September 18 the newly appointed state president of the party Shivpal Yadav, who is also the uncle of the chief minister , sacked one MlC Arvind Yadav, nephew of Ramgopal Yadav and on Monday thre MlCc and four heads of the frontal organisations of the party known as `team Akhilesh’ were expelled from the party.
last week Chief Minister had addressed Amar Singh as an `outsider’ and responsible for the feud in the family. Chief Minister had also said that he would never address Amar Singh as `uncle’ any more. Even as Akhilesh Yadav is the chairman of the state parliamentary board of the party, elevation of Amar Singh will add to the political challenges before the chief minister within the party as the Rajya Sabha MP will have a role in the distribution of the tickets for the 2017 assembly elections. Earlier in the day, Akhilesh Yadav claimed that the Samajwadi party stands united. The SP family was the same as it was in the past and we will unitedly fight the elections and form the next government, he said.
Amar Singh, after a gap of six and a half year again becomes the general secretary of the SP. He had resigned from all posts of the party on January 6, 2010 and later was expelled along with his close aide Rampur MP Jaya Prada and six MlAs by Mulayam Singh Yadav in February 2010.
Amar Singh later floated his own political party, Rashtriya lok Manch, in 2011, and fielded candidates in 360 of the 403 seats in state assembly elections 2012 and drew blank. He joined the Rashtriya lok Dal party in March 2014, and contested the lok Sabha election from Fatehpur Sikri and lost.