Amar Singh, Ram Gopal in fresh verbal duel

Miffed former general secretary Amar Singh and Ram Gopal Yadav — Samajwadi Party MP and cousin of Mulayam Singh Yadav — engaged in another round of mud-slinging on Tuesday.

In Etawah, Ram Gopal called Amar a “blackmailer” and “mentally unstable”. He said a majority of party leaders and workers wanted the Thakur leader expelled. Ram Gopal said contrary to Amar’s claims on TV channels, he had not apologised.

Mulayam remained silent, fuelling speculation that Amar was finally on his way out of the SP. Amar has turned down Mulayam’s invitation to preside on the last day of the ‘Sefai Mahotsav’ in his parental village in Etawah on January 24.

Not one to take things quietly, Amar Singh retorted with a blog post. In the blog addressed to Netaji (Mulayam), he wrote: “Some journalists asked me if I have some secrets about Netaji. I told them that we both have shared a lot of secrets. But neither he nor I would ever speak about these.”

Amar said he blogged because repeated attempts to contact Mulayam and his son Akhilesh on phone failed.