Saifai(Etawah)/Varanasi, January 27: Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav today called up Mr Amar Singh to wish him on his birthday, a day on which the former also made important appointments in the party to fill the post vacated by the high profile leader who fell out with the Yadav family recently.
Mr Singh, who still retains party membership, told reporters here that ‘Netaji’ (Mulayam Singh Yadav) made phone call to him to wish him a happy birthday.
He, however, refused to react to the new appointments, saying ”it was prerogative of the party, and the vacant posts had to be filled anyway.” ”There is nothing to be reacted on in these appointments. The organisation has to carry on its work. I wish the party well,” Mr Singh told reporters here.
”I just want to relax for now,” he added.
He said he was celebrating his birthday simply with his family and close friends.’ The Bachchan family is also visiting Mr Singh at his home today on the occasion.
Mr Singh had last month resigned from the party posts citing health reasons, but the real cause was believed to be his grouse against his alleged marginalisation in the party by the Yadav family.
The simmering differences in the party had come to the fore after the Ferozabad by-elections in which Mr Yadav’s daughter-in-law Dimple Yadav lost to the Congress, a defeat that become humiliating as the constituency was considered to be a bastion of the Yadav family.
The defeat that had come a few months after the losses in the Lok Sabha elections had triggered a mudslinging match between Mr Singh and Mr Ram Gopal Yadav, a cousin of Mr Yadav and leader of the SP Parliamentary Board. Mr Ram Gopal Yadav and other senior party leaders did not like the way Mr Singh was conducting party affairs and the differences finally culminated in the latter resigning from all party posts.
Though, Mr Yadav had initially refused to accept Mr Singh’s resignation, but he had to finally accept it under pressure from party leaders. Mr Singh has said he would continue to serve the party as its ”humble worker”, and concentrate on social work, and organise the most backward classes and his Kshatriya Samaj, the caste he belongs to.
–Agencies