'No plans' to take Amar Singh in Samajwadi front headed by Mulayam Singh: Shivpal Yadav

Lucknow: Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Yadav today said that he has no plans to take Amar Singh in his proposed Samajwadi Secular Front and that he had also opposed his rejoining the party last year. “I was not in favour of Amar Singh joining SP again. I knew he will not be getting due respect and one should avoid…You can ask anyone I was not in his favour”, Mr Yadav told news agency PTI.

Amar was termed as an “outsider” by Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav during the state assembly elections. The Samajwadi Party had in May 2016 declared Amar Singh as its candidate for the Rajya Sabha elections taking him back to the party, six years after his expulsion. Amar Singh was expelled from the party along with then Rampur lawmaker Jaya Prada in February 2010 on charges of anti-party activities, after which he established his own party – Lok Manch.

In 2014, however, Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh Yadav were again seen together at a function in Lucknow, after which they kept meeting frequently.

Asked whether he would consider taking Amar in his front Shivpal Yadav said, “There is no plan as such to take him. We will take along all the ‘samajwadis’ (socialists), who are feeling neglected”. He went on to say that he is “open to do anything for unity within the family. If they (Akhilesh and others) want they can sit with ‘netaji’ (Mulayam). I want to ensure that netaji gets due respect. And for this I am ready for any placement”.

Saying that “sycophancy and backbiting” were the reasons for the dispute within the family, Shivpal Yadav said, “all will be well if the family is united. There is no reason for dispute within the family. Our first priority will be to unite the family”.

On his decision to form the ‘Samajwadi Secular Front’, which will be headed by Mulayam Singh, Shivpal Yadav said that it will bring the party on the “right track”.

Maintaining that he is still in the party and will only try to strengthen it, Shivpal Yadav, who has been at odds with nephew and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, made it clear that he was forming just a “front” and not a political party.

“We will constitute the Samajwadi Secular Front in July to bring the SP on the right track. We will formally announce it at a meeting in Lucknow”, Shivpal Yadav said.

“SP patron Mulayam will be the national president of the front and I would be its convenor,” he said. On the possibility of the Front jumping in the political arena in the future in case family dispute did not settle down, he said, “There are no elections right now. The next poll is in 2019 (Lok Sabha polls) and then in 2022 (UP assembly polls). We will decide in later stage what situation arises”.

The Samajwadi Party has witnessed a prolonged factional fight that began before the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections with Akhilesh and Shivpal on opposing camps.