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This is an archive article published on June 30, 2009

Azam Khan calls Amar Singh a ‘political Dalit’

Expelled Samajwadi Party leader Mohammed Azam Khan said that all options were open for him to decide his future course.

Expelled Samajwadi Party leader Mohammed Azam Khan said on Tuesday that all options were open for him to decide his future course and hinted at leaving politics.

“I would not go to anyone on my own. I am not a liability to anyone. I have not spoken to anybody,neither Congress nor Mayawati,” Khan,who had gone against the party line to oppose the candidature of film actress and Samajwadi Party nominee Jaya Prada in Rampur Lok Sabha constituency,told reporters in New Delhi.

He,however,said he could even think of a career outside politics. “It is not that I will remain in politics for ever,” he added.

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“As of now,both assembly and Lok Sabha elections are far away but my focus will be on 12 assembly seats and one Lok Sabha seat of Ferozabad in Uttar Pradesh which will go to bypoll. I have not yet decided whom to support,” SP MLA from Rampur Khas said.

He claimed he was “yet to recover from the shock of being removed from the party.”

Khan was recently expelled from SP for allegedly indulging in “anti-party” activities but has so far not resigned as MLA. The SP leadership had asked him to resign from his assembly membership and dared him to contest from Rampur Khas as an independent.

Asked whether he was angry with the SP leadership because of former BJP leader Kalyan Singh’s proximity with Mulayam Singh Yadav or Amar Singh’s growing clout in the organisation,Khan said Amar Singh is a “political Dalit as of now.”

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“All the theories about him influencing the party leadership and running the party affairs are incorrect and he is a helpless person,” he claimed.

Khan also vent his ire against Kalyan Singh alleging SP has become Kalyan Singh’s party now. “My heart still pains that I failed to realise the other facet of Mulayam’s persona with whom I had been associated for the last 25 years.”

He said that despite Mulayam’s closeness with Kalyan,he (Khan) decided not to leave the party because “I believed in curing the ailment and not killing the patient. I never left SP. I was removed.”

The former UP minister denied allegations that he had distributed CDs to malign the image of Jaya Prada during the Lok Sabha elections.

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“I would never indulge in something like this. I never said anything against Jaya Prada. Had I launched a campaign against her,she would not have won. I opposed Kalyan Singh and the result was that all Muslim MPs of SP lost in UP,” Khan claimed.

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