UP: Amar Singh a flamboyant politician who added glitz to dry politics

LUCKNOW: “One can love me or hate me, but certainly can’t ignore me,” Amar Singh had said while talking to TOI at his Lucknow residence several years ago.
That was perhaps the best assessment that people approved of regarding Amar Singh and his role in UP politics.

Born in Aligarh and having his roots in Azamgarh, Singh started his political journey as a member of the students’ wing of the Congress party.
After his education in Calcutta, he stationed himself in Delhi and came close to Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Barely four years after the SP was founded, Singh was nominated to Rajya Sabha.
It was actually not his friends across party lines but his contacts in showbiz and corporate world that made Amar Singh different from a typical politician that UP had seen till then.
It was Singh’s association with superstar Amitabh Bachchan that saw the actor pitching in for the Samajwadi Party during the elections with his campaign “UP mein hai dum…”
Despite his known ‘difference of opinion’ with SP’s Muslim face Azam Khan, Singh went on to be appointed as party’s general secretary. After being sacked from SP in 2010, Amar Singh joined Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal in March 2014. Having lost elections from Fatehpur Sikri, Singh once again reached out to Mulayam to mend fences.
In 2016, he was nominated to Rajya Sabha by Mulayam Singh despite resistance from son Akhilesh Yadav, who was then the UP CM, and Azam Khan.
According to insiders, Mulayam put his foot down on the issue stating that Amar Singh helped him when the CBI was after him in disproportionate assets case and that it was now time for him to pay back.
However, Akhilesh went on to hold Amar Singh responsible for attempting to administer a split in the party by misleading uncle Shivpal Yadav.