Amar Singh demands resignation of Mayawati

Accusing Uttar Pradesh government of implicating him in a false and fabricated case, SP general secretary Amar Singh today demanded resignation of chief minister Mayawati or action against guilty officers.

"I demand from Mayawati that either she should resign or take action against the officers responsible for lodging a fake FIR against me at Babupurwa police station in Kanpur district," he told reporters here.

Referring to allegation against him that he had siphoned off funds through merger of companies, Singh said the merger questioned in the FIR was approved by the Company Law Board, Income Tax Department and the Kolkata High Court.

"Mayawati is corporate illiterate," he alleged.

The SP leader said he was only a shareholder in the companies named in the FIR and had nothing to do with their management as of now.

"I have no hitch in admitting that before entering politics, I was a businessman and it was my profession. After entering the politics, I tendered my resignation as director from the board of all companies as it was almost impossible to manage the affairs due to full time political involvements," he said.

Singh, who met governor BL Joshi, said he had demanded that an inquiry should be ordered into the conspiracy being hatched to defame and malign him.

The SP leader said though the state government had said it had nothing to do with the case, its officers and ministers were in direct contact with the complainant Shivakant Tripathi much before the FIR was lodged.

Singh claimed that the "call details of Tripathi's mobile phone reveal that he had long conversations with minister Babu Singh Kushwaha, senior bureaucrat in CM secretariat Navneet Sehgal, BSP leader Akhilesh Das and SHO of Babupurwa police station Dinesh Tripathi.

"The cabinet secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh had said the state government had nothing to do with the case and an inquiry has been ordered as to how the FIR was lodged. If it was so, then why the officer contacted Tripathi 25 times.

Calls were made even from the CM's official residence," he alleged.

Raising questions over the credentials of the complainant Tripathi and the SHO, Singh said he had 30 criminal cases against him and the inspector too had a shady record.

"The SHO was involved in a land grabbing case and statue theft. The complainant on the other hand mentioned a retired judge's address as that of his own," he claimed.

He said even the Kolkata police, to whom the FIR was transferred, had refused to investigate the case after consulting advocate general and had termed it as illegal.

"How many times do I have to clarify this. Is even the Kolkata police lying," he questioned.

Singh said his association with these companies was only that of a shareholder.

"I am shareholder in many companies including those owned by Mukesh Ambani, Narayan Murthy, NTPC and ONGC, why doesn't the state government get FIRs registered against all of them," he asked.

Alleging that the BSP supremo had victimised him in the past as well, Amar Singh said his chemicals factory in Ghaziabad was targeted for power theft though he used generators to run it.

"The then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had said in Parliament that it was Mayawati's fault," he said, adding that this made her furious.

Mayawati had lodged 170 cases against SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav in one day after this incident, Singh alleged. "All these cases were later quashed by the courts," he said.

The Rajya Sabha MP maintained that he had no qualms in saying that business and not politics was his profession.

Raking up the case of allotment of a plot to him allegedly under the Economically Weaker Section category, Singh said the plot was alloted to him by BSP leader Kanshi Ram.

He alleged that Mayawati registered five cases against him in Hazratganj police station here charging him with committing trespass at her home in Ambedkarnagar.

"She alleged that I made a CD of her posing as a living Goddess and asking people to offer her Gangajal," he said.