6 Jan : High-profile Samajwadi Party spokesperson Amar Singh on Wednesday resigned as its General Secretary and other posts following deepening differences with party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, saying his priority now was his health, wife and children.
Singh, who is in Dubai, told PTI over phone that he has resigned as national General Secretary, Spokesman and member of the Samajwadi Party parliamentary board.
He faxed his resignation from all the three posts to Yadav, he said.”I have resigned from all the three posts with immediate effect and I have faxed my resignation to Mulayam Singh Yadav,” said Singh.
Shortly after the party’s humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha by-election in Firozabad in November, Singh had
criticised Yadav, saying the defeat was because of the over confidence of the SP chief and his family.
Even during the Lok Sabha elections, Singh’s ties with the party leadership had come under strain over Jaya Prada’s candidature in Rampur which was opposed to by Azam Khan, who later exited the party.
Singh insisted that there was “no political motive behind my resignation and I am doing so strictly as per the advice of my doctors, who have asked me to take complete rest as I have
just undergone a major kidney transplant operation.”
Asked why he decided to resign three months after his operation, he said, “I had resigned on three occasions in the
past but on each occasion Netaji (Mulayam Singh Yadav) had rejected my request.”
He said, “Family and my health comes first for me. Doctors have advised me complete rest and it is not possible to adhere to their advice while following such a hectic schedule. Therefore, I decided to resign from all the three posts”.
Singh said he will continue to remain an ordinary worker of the party and has requested the SP chief to make Ram Gopal Yadav the party’s national spokesperson in his place.
“Ram Gopal is already member of the Parliamentary Board of the party and also a general secretary and, therefore, he can become the spokesperson also,” the SP leader said.
Singh said he will be going to Singapore where he was operated late last year to consult his doctors as he does not want his kidney problem to relapse and will be back in the country by the middle of this month.