SAMAJWADI Party general secretary Amar Singh had just one thing in common with Congress president Sonia Gandhi: Amitabh Bachchan. Close to both the Gandhi bahu and the Thakur neta, the actor had tried to bring them together in 1996, when the businessman-politician organised a sponsor for the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation’s charity premier of 1942: A Love Story. Singh refused and the two never met.
Sonia wrote him a sweet letter of thanks anyway, little knowing that a few years down the line, Singh would be a bitter critic and perhaps the single greatest hurdle in her bid for prime ministership. He was to refuse to meet her yet again, when a conclave of Third Front leaders rejected her candidature in favour of West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu. The unpleasant task of informing Sonia was left to RJD’s Laloo Yadav and AIADMK’s J. Jayalalitha.
It was Amar Singh who organised the conclave that changed the complexion of Indian politics and brought Sonia up short, within spitting distance of the PM’s chair. Even as SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav told the press he would not blindly support the Congress , Singh was speeding to Jayalalitha’s digs at Maurya Sheraton, cell-phone humming as he rounded up Third Front leaders.
Singh’s reservations about Sonia date back to her assumption of the Congress presidentship. On record, he maintained the SP’s official position that the Congress’ choice of leader was its internal affair. But his confidants knew better. Immediately after the 1998 general election and immediately before the BJP’s second vote of confidence, Singh privately asserted he would never back Sonia.
Had any other Congress leader— be it Sharad Pawar, Manmohan Singh or Purno Sangma— been projected as prime ministerial nominee, the Samajwadi Party might well have softened its stand vis-a-vis the Congress. But Sonia’s proud assertion at Rashtrapati Bhawan that she had the "support of 272 MPs" put up the SP’s back. "Are we to be traded like boxes of Alphonsos?" Singh asked at the time.
The SP general secretary ’s views on the Congress president reflect and reinforce those of his leader. Mulayam Singh, under intense pressure from Laloo and the CPI(M)’s H.K.S. Surjeet, may have wavered. But Singh never did. It was he who shored up Mulayam’s confidence, networking with the RSP’s Abani Roy, Forward Bloc’s Debabrata Biswas, TDP’s Chandrababu Naidu, the CPI(M)’s Somnath Chatterjee and others who shared a distrust of the Congress.
Thanks partly to his efforts, it is Surjeet rather than Mulayam who now stands isolated. For Singh, the final vindication was to come in the shape of Basu’s statement that he had, in fact, been a candidate for prime minister, despite Surjeet’s assertions to the contrary. So at the end of the day, it was the Congress’ attitude of "Sonia or no one" which prevented the formation of an alternative government. Singh points out: "The lust and greed for the chair was stronger than secular commitment".
While the Congress screamed betrayal, Singh pointed out that his party’s stand had been consistent ever since the Pachmarhi declaration, in which Sonia had attacked ‘casteist’ parties. At the SP’s national executive in Etawah, where Surjeet was the guest of honour and later at Bhopal, where Laloo was the chief invitee, it had declared equidistance from the Congress and the BJP.
Singh’s role in the crisis was particularly galling for Congress Working Committee (CWC) member Arjun Singh. Back in ’91, when Amar Singh’s buddy Madhavrao sindia had recommended him as a Congress candidate for the Rajya Sabha, it was Arjun Singh who had vehemently opposed his case. For the CWC leader, seen as the prime mover in the efforts to install Sonia as PM, the party’s failure to form an alternative government was a personal blow.Delivered by none other than Amar Singh, the man he had snubbed.
The SP general secretary’s association with politics goes back to the early ’70s. He was an active member of the Chhatra Parishad in Calcutta, along with Priyaranjan Das Munshi, Mamata Banerjee and Subroto Mukherjee. His friendship with CWC member Pranab Mukherjee is equally longstanding. From student poliitics, he graduated to becoming secretary of the district Congress committee in Calcutta. He acquired a degree in law and went to Lucknow, where he met Vir Bahadur Singh and Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Amar Singh became an AICC member from Madhya Pradesh and an intimate of Scindia. Unhappy with his lack of progress in the Congress, he quit to join Mulayam Singh in 1995. He was to fall out with Scindia in 1998, after helping Mulayam negotiate an alliance with the Congress’ Sharad Pawar for the general elections. Scindia was the AICC general secretary in charge of Maharashtra and didn’t take kindly to being sidelined in political dealings which directly affected the state. Singh met Amitabh through Jaya Bachchan in 1989 and the two became close. Congressmen close to Arjun Singh have it that Amar Singh’s opposition to Sonia is the outcome of strained relations between Bachchan and 10, Janpath. Others attribute his animosity to Sonia’s refusal to acknowledge him, and still others to a sense of nationalism. "If the Congress thinks it has no other effective candidates for prime minister, like Pawar or Sangma or Shiv Shankar, that is their outlook," Singh said.
The fact remains that Singh effectively burnt his boats with the Congress when he attacked its dynastic moorings: "The master-slave relationship is a part of the Nehru/Gandhi-led Congress culture. When is the Congress going to realise that dynasty belongs to the past, that there has been a political awakening in the country ? "
On Sonia: "Her halo has gone. She is like any other ordinary, ambitious politician.... Can I go to Italy and get into politics? Will I be able to grab power there? Sonia has been accepted as the bahu of the Gandhi family and that has earned her respect and status. She has been accepted as Congress president. Some people may not have a problem with her Italian birth, but it may be a problem with millions of people in India."
For all his debating skills, it’s Singh’s ability to network that’s phenomenal. He moves seamlessly from the world of business to politics to films to the media. He’s as comfortable advising Boney Kapoor and Sridevi on personal affairs as discussing the Samajwadi ideology with editors or interacting with captains of industry at CII. He is close to media baron Subroto Roy of the Sahara group and to industrialist K.K. Birla, who owns The Hindustan Times.
Through skilful manipulation of the media, Amar Singh shed the wheeler dealer label he’d acquired following his debut on the national scene during the UP imbroglio in ’95. He became a Rajya Sabha MP in December 1996 and has, in line with Mulayam Singh’s recent efforts to expand his support base to include the upper castes, since tried to project himself as the Thakur face of the SP.
Indeed, during the UF’s two years in power, he was sought after by the media, frequently taking Mulayam Singh’s place in coordination committee meetings. Gujraldidn’t have much time to spare for him, but the arithmetic of the 11th and 12th Lok Sabhas ensured that Amar Singh remained in the public eye as spokesperson for a significant bloc of MPs. Rumours of a schism between Amar Singh and Mulayam surface occasionally but haven’t been borne out so far. He continues to maintain affection for and loyalty to his leader. But the fact that he can’t get along with SP leader Beni Prasad Verma, who wanted to toe the Congress line, is an open secret .
Just 43, Amar Singh can look forward to a long innings in politics. But much depends on the results of the SP’s gamble in UP. If the minorities stand firm and the upper castes sympathise with its stand against Sonia, the SP is home and dry. Seen as Mulayam’s chief advisor, whose word prevailed against Surjeet’s, Amar Singh’s stakes in the forthcoming general polls are high.
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