Amar threatens to quit over Azam

The continuing feud within the Samajwadi Party between general secretaries Amar Singh and Mohamed Azam Khan over the nomination of actor Jayaprada as party nominee for the Rampur seat in Uttar Pradesh, worsened on Tuesday, with Singh threatening to quit the party.

“I’ve been silent until now because our party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav asked me not to say anything against Azam Khan,” said Singh, addressing a gathering of the Students Islamic Federation. “But there seems to be no similar gag on him (Khan). Mulayam Singh told me I have to tolerate Azam Khan if I want to remain in the party. I’ll tolerate him up to a point, but after that I’ll say goodbye.”

“Amar Singh’s remarks are a calculated move to humiliate me and force me to quit the SP,” Khan told HT by telephone from Kanpur. “But I will not oblige him. I’m a founding member of the SP. I’ve devoted my life to building this party.”

He added that he did not take Singh’s threat seriously. “Amar Singh will not go anywhere,” he said. “All my efforts are directed towards saving the party from people like him.”

The renomination of Jayaprada in Rampur against Khan’s wishes — she’d got the SP ticket in the last Lok Sabha poll too, and had won — was only the last of a series of developments within the party which left Khan smarting.

He had earlier objected even more strongly to the SP offering its support to BJP rebel and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh, contesting from Etah. Kalyan Singh was CM when the Babri Masjid was demolished on December 6, 1992, and is anathema to most Muslims.

In past weeks, Khan has stopped attending SP meetings, while his supporters in Rampur – from which he too hails – have been openly working to defeat Jayaprada.