It was a well-timed return to the spotlight for Samajwadi Party spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Amar Singh, who had almost vanished after the Samajwadi Party’s humiliating defeat in the UP Assembly polls last fortnight. After days of alternating between hospital and residence, Singh is finally home, in enforced “rest and recuperation”.

But the SP leader was all alone while addressing the press to condemn the police firing on Gurjjars two days ago. “The firing on unarmed Gurjjars must be condemned, and we extend our full support to the community in its demand for getting ST status.” Singh blamed Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia for resorting to repressive measures instead of dialogue.

The SP spokesperson made a valiant bid to catapult the party back into the national stage by pitching for the presidential race. Singh revealed his party would hold a conclave in Hyderabad on June 6, with its allies—Jayalalithaa’s AIAD-MK, Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP, Brindaban Goswami’s AGP and Om Prakash Chautala’s INLD—to evolve a common strategy on the issue. The SP had learned the hard way that it was better to be a group rather than alone—with 40 MPs the SP is nowhere today, but it had four Union ministers with just 15 MPs in 1996, when it was part of the United Front.

Singh even proclaimed his party’s secular and socialist credentials by declaring its allegiance with the CPI(M), though he reiterated his party’s stand to not support a “Congress candidate”. Said Singh, “The only leader we are in touch with is Comrade Prakash Karat, and we have no problem in supporting a good presidential candidate from the Left.”

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