Amar shares dais with Mulayam three months before end of RS tenure

Rajya Sabha member Amar Singh who was expelled by the Samajwadi Party (SP) four years ago shared the dais with its president Mulayam Singh Yadav on Tuesday and went on to describe himself as “Mulayamwadi”.
 
This has triggered talk that the SP might renominate him to Rajya Sabha.
 
The occasion for the coming together of the estranged friends was the inauguration of the Janeshwar Mishra Park in Lucknow to which Mulayam had invited Amar Singh.
 
“I am Mulayamwadi, not Samajwadi,” Amar Singh said, apparently trying to send a message that he felt close to the SP chief and not the party.
 
He said he was at the apolitical function in a personal capacity and was an admirer of late Janeshwar Mishra’s ideology.
 
As anticipated, senior minister Azam Khan, widely seen as Amar Singh’s bête noire, did not turn up for the event.
 
Both did not see eye to eye when they were in the SP and had played a major role in each other’s ouster from the party. Azam had returned to the SP after Amar Singh was expelled.
 
Amar Singh was associated with the SP from 1996 till he was expelled in February 2010.
 
He had come to the SP from the Congress. The SP nominated him to Rajya Sabha in 1996 and then in 2002 and 2008.
 
The Rajya Sabha website lists his current status as an “Independent & Others” member. His term due to expire in November.
 
Amar Singh has ruled out the possibility of joining the SP again.
 
His exit from SP came after a protracted war of words with other leaders. In 2011, he had floated his own party, the Rashtriya Lok Manch, and contested the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections a year later.
 
He could not win a single seat despite fielding candidates from 360 of the 403 seats in the state. 
 
Ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Amar Singh joined Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and contested Fatehpur Sikiri seat but had lost.
 
Almost all the prominent people who were inducted into the SP through Amar Singh either left or were expelled, except one — Jaya Bachchan.
 
She did not leave the party and was also renominated to Rajya Sabha.
 
At the inauguration of the park, UP chief minister and Mulayam’s son Akhilesh Yadav too greeted Amar Singh.