M A I N   N E W S

Kalyan’s son Rajvir quits SP
Shahira Naim
Tribune News Service

Lucknow, November 15
Kalyan Singh’s son Rajvir Singh today resigned from the post of Samajwadi Party’s national general secretary and also gave up the primary membership of the party. Admitting that SP president Mulayam Singh Yadav’s statement had deeply upset him and his supporters, Rajvir said he could not remain in a party that had shown scant respect for his father.

“We left the BJP because we were not getting due respect there. Now we are ready to face the situation as it unfolds in the future,” he told the media here.

Rajvir Singh had earlier been a minister in the Mulayam Singh Yadav government in 2003 when his father’s four-member party supported Mulayam’s rainbow coalition.

Along with his father he made a second homecoming to BJP in 2004. In 2007, he lost the Vidhan Sabha polls due to factional fighting forcing his father to sulk and finally quit the BJP in January 2009 when Yadav extended a hand in friendship. Rajvir had formally joined the SP and was made its national general secretary. He claimed to have addressed 167 meetings in the recent by-elections in Uttar Pradesh.

Erred in judging Mulayam, says angry Kalyan Singh
Shahira Naim
Tribune News Service

Lucknow, November 15
Taking a U-turn, former BJP leader Kalyan Singh today announced a return to the Hindutva plank and said he was a dyed in the wool RSS activist.

A day after Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav publicly distanced himself from the former BJP leader, a bitter Kalyan charged Yadav of ‘betrayal and opportunism’ bringing down the curtain on ten months of a very camera-friendly bonhomie.

Exposing Yadav’s statement that Kalyan had been invited to the SP national convention in Agra by mistake, an offended Kalyan said he was specifically asked to address the convention.

“Mulayam Singh made me wear the red cap. Even earlier it was he who personally chalked out my Lok Sabha election campaign schedule and kept a helicopter at my disposal. The SP would have ended up with just 14 seats in the Lok Sabha elections. He got those nine additional seats because of me,” claimed a visibly-upset Kalyan.

He declared that he would now make amends for the damage he had caused by leaving the BJP. “I will be happy if the BJP sets its house in order and emerges stronger”, he said. Claiming that the SP president made the first move, he said it was Yadav and Amar Singh who had come to him with a proposal to join the SP in January 2009. “When I turned down the offer they extended the hand of friendship which I accepted. They also asked me to allow my son Rajvir to join the SP and I agreed.,” he said.

Describing the just-ended friendship as the biggest mistake of his political career, Kalyan Singh revealed that he had ignored his supporters’ advice, who had warned him that Yadav could not be trusted

“Everyone said he has a history of betraying people but I disregarded it. Whether it is Raj Babbar, Azam Khan or Beni Varma-he has betrayed them all and does not know the art of honoring friendship,” said Kalyan.

Accusing the SP president of losing his mental balance because of the defeat of his bahu on his home turf, Kalyan said instead of blaming him Yadav should have done some serious introspection on the real causes of the voters rejecting him.