Mulayam Singh has done it before

At a strategic meeting of Left parties in the run-up to the first UPA government’s vote of confidence in 2008, journalists asked CPI general secretary AB Bardhan how the Left could trust Mayawati, a new entrant to their camp, when she was known to switch sides. Pat came his reply, “With her you know what to accept, she stabs you from the front, whereas Mulayam Singh stabs you from behind.”

Bardhan’s reply has come to typify what people have come to expect of the SP leadership. His decision to disown former BJP chief minister Kalyan Singh has not surprised anybody.

The Left parties had used their influence to restrain the first UPA government from moving against the Mulayam Singh government in UP but within months he jumped sides and helped bail out the Singh government during its trial of strength.

That was not the SP chief’s first volte face. In 1990, he first sided with Chandrasekhar to topple the VP Singh government at the Centre. But, soon after, he cosied up to Rajiv Gandhi. The two leaders sat through the night, working out a gameplan to thwart the BJP in UP. Rajiv Gandhi assured Congress support to Singh’s government and Singh promised to work with the Congress in UP.

That very morning Singh flew back to Lucknow, dissolved the state assembly and ordered elections, which the BJP won to form its first government in the state.
Singh also did not bat an eyelid before disowning Azam Khan, long-time associate and a founder of the SP.

Others who were meted out the same treatment include Raj Babbar and Saleem Sherwani.

But the tide seems to be turning. The SP leader, once revered for sticking by friends and keeping his word, now has to contend with a growing list of those who claim to have been let down by him. And some of them are getting back at him. Babbar got his revenge last week when he trounced Singh’s daughter-in-law in the SP’s backyard of Firozabad. Now Kalyan Singh has threatened to reveal details of how the SP leadership wooed and used him.