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Mulayam Singh wants to forget the past

Special Correspondent

Amar Singh’s name not in the list of leaders participating in stir

Mulayam refused to comment on the future of Amar Singh
‘Any future development would be made known’

LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh on Monday said he wanted to look forward and leave the past behind.

“I want to forget the past,” he told reporters here after unveiling the party’s plan of launching a State-wide agitation from Tuesday against price rise, corruption and crime. The name of the party’s former general secretary Amar Singh does not figure in the list of leaders who would take part in the agitation.

Mr. Mulayam Singh refused to comment on the future of Mr. Amar Singh, whose resignation was accepted by him on Sunday, or on the controversy that dogged the party for close to a fortnight. However, he gave enough hints that Mr. Amar Singh was “history.”

“Socialism is nobody’s personal domain; the socialist/Lohiaite ideology had survived even after Ram Manohar Lohia, Karpoori Thakur and S.M. Joshi,” Mr. Singh told reporters here upon his return from Etawah.

On the possibility of the return of expelled leader Mohammad Azam Khan to the party, now that Mr. Amar Singh is away from the party, Mr. Mulayam Singh reiterated that he always looked forward, and any future development would be made known. r. Mulayam Singh cracked jokes with the journalists assembled at the party headquarters here. He freely mingled with the workers on the lawns and exhorted them to make the agitation successful.

Mr. Mulayam Singh said the ban imposed on the agitation by the Mayawati government would be defied. Neither he nor the Samajwadis flinched from accepting a challenge. Staging a peaceful agitation was their democratic right.

He said all sections of people were reeling under the impact of price rise, with pulses selling at Rs. 90-Rs.100 a kg and sugar Rs. 50. Both the Centre and State governments were responsible for the price rise, but they were blaming each other. On the Centre blaming the Uttar Pradesh government for the price rise, he said that if the State was responsible for the price rise, the Centre should take action against it. Only poor people with empty stomachs were dying in the cold wave, he observed.

Mr. Singh alleged that Chief Minister Mayawati and BSP leaders were involved in corruption and that party workers were involved in criminal activities.

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