Amar Singh threatens to resign from Rajya Sabha

Claiming that people close to Mulayam Singh Yadav are being "insulted" in the Samajwadi Party, its MP Amar Singh today threatened to resign as a Rajya Sabha member.

"I have never said I am Samajwadi. I am Mulayamwadi...But it has become kind of a crime to be Mulayamwadi," he said.

He said he is awaiting a meeting with Mulayam to discuss the issue. "I will hand it (resignation letter) directly to (Rajya Sabha Chairman) Hamid Ansari. I am not the one who use resignation as a pressure tactic," he told Aaj Tak.

Singh, who had recently returned to the SP fold, said several senior party leaders were opposed to his return.

In Rajya Sabha, he said, he sits at the back benches with party leaders like Reoti Raman Singh and Beni Prasad Verma, while leaders like Naresh Agarwal hog the limelight.

"When personal choices overtake merit, politics suffers," he said without naming the leader who had been targeting him.

He said he is maintaining silence as Mulayam has advised him to keep "mum".

Singh along with his close associate Jaya Prada were expelled from the Samajwadi Party in February, 2010. He floated his own political party, Rashtriya Lok Manch, in 2011, and fielded candidates in 360 of the 403 seats in Uttar Pradesh in the 2012 assembly polls. However his party did not win a single seat in these election.

He joined the Rashtriya Lok Dal party in March, 2014, and contested from Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh in 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Recently, he returned to the SP fold and was sent to the Upper House.