Amar Singh resigns as SP general secy

High-profile Samajwadi Party spokesperson Amar Singh on Wednesday resigned as its General Secretary and other posts following deepening differences with party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, saying his priority now was his health, wife and children.

Singh, who is in Dubai, said he has resigned as national General Secretary, Spokesman and member of the Samajwadi Party parliamentary board. He faxed his resignation from all the three posts to Yadav, he said.

The 53-year-old leader, who was considered the right hand man of Yadav, insisted that there was "no political motive" behind his resignation but appeared bitter about the party.

After the kidney transplant he underwent in Singapore three months back, he said "my doctors said you are not well and you are living on somebody else's kidney. Once I came back, there has been no change in my lifestyle and there is no division of labour in the party."

He said he was resigning "strictly as per the advice of my doctors, who have asked me to take complete rest as I have just undergone a major kidney transplant operation."

"I had been giving more priority to Mulayam Singh Yadav and the party. After 20 years, now I should look after my children, wife and their welfare, over and above that of Mulayam Singh and the party," Singh said.

Singh, who had attacked Mulayam Singh and his family over the party's humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha by election in Firozabad in November, at the same time maintained, "There is no difference with Yadav and I would not like to ditch him at this hour of crisis."