Though Mulayam is said to be backing Singh's return to the party, a few senior leaders, particularly SP's Muslim face Azam Khan, are wary.
The surprise presence of expelled Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh at the swearing-in of Uttar Pradesh Lokayukta on Sunday fuelled speculation of his early return to the party.
"I am present in SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav's heart. It is much more than my presence in the party," Singh, SP's once powerful general secretary, told reporters after the swearing-in ceremony at Raj Bhawan.
"A political party may be guided by 'swarth (vested interest)', but not the heart, which is pure and selfless. If one resides in someone's heart, it is immaterial whether one is in the party or not," Singh said.
His attendance at the event came days after the SP chief had said, "Amar Singh may not be the formal member of the party, Amar Singh was in my heart, he is my heart and he will remain there."
Yadav said he always had "very close ties" with Singh and "there is no change in those relations and they will remain for all my life", dropping ample hints of his early comeback in the party fold.
Though Mulayam is said to be backing Singh's return to the party, a few senior leaders, particularly SP's Muslim face Azam Khan, are wary. Amar Singh was present at the birthday function of the SP chief in Saifai on November 22, last year. In January 2010, Samajwadi Party Parliamentary Board had expelled Singh from the party, terming him as "intruder".
On his expulsion, Singh had said he was hurt when he was thrown out of the party fold on his birthday which falls on January 27. "But I don't carry any baggage. Mulayam Singh has always been an elder brother to me and Akhilesh is like my son," he had said.
Singh had a long meeting with the chief minister Akhilesh Yadav here on January 26, fuelling speculation in political circles over his return to the party fold.
Meanwhile, senior Uttar Pradesh minister Azam Khan, when asked about Amar Singh's possible return to the party, said it was the "prerogative" of SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav to decide whom to keep in the party fold and whom to "show the exit".
"Netaji (Yadav) is the senior most in the party and it is his prerogative to keep anyone in the party fold or show the exit," Khan told reporters in Rampur.
He was reacting to Yadav's recent remarks that "Amar Singh may not be the formal member of the party, Amar Singh was in my heart, he is my heart and he will remain there".
Khan took a dig at Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi over his visit to Hyderabad Central University following the suicide by a dalit research scholar.
"Such deaths occur everyday... Rahul was expected to launch a sit-in when a person belonging to the minority community was murdered in Himachal Pradesh but he overlooked it as the state is ruled by the Congress," Khan said. He was referring to the killing of a man from Uttar Pradesh by villagers of Sarahan in Himachal Pradesh who believed he was involved in smuggling of cattle.
Khan also attacked RSS and Bajrang Dal over the incident of a youth being tonsured and paraded on a donkey in Kanpur for allegedly converting another man to Christianity without his consent. "All such acts are being done at the behest of RSS and BJP. It is a very old tactic of the RSS," he said.
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