Champ-lifiers

Politics is no different from sports. You pick specialised players to form the best team, with similar homework going into both. Without the best combination, you can't become the champ. Not without Amar Singh. He's still very much one of the key players; not redundant in the least. Singh has proved his importance not only for his netaji Mulayam Singh Yadav or the Samajwadi Party, but also for other political parties. You can't possibly overlook how, when Left parties withdrew support from Congress over the India-US nuclear deal, he played his role as a saviour for UPA-I.

Amar Singh is not an individual but a character inextricable in all political parties. Such characters are 'necessary elements' for all teams in the political playfield, and every party has it, albeit with a different name.

It is a subject of debate, however, if it is an 'evil' or 'blessing' for the Indian democracy as a whole.

There are ample examples where mass leaders failed to set up a successful political party in absence of such a 'necessary element'. Leaders like Uma Bharti, Kalyan Singh, Shankar Singh Vaghela, Narayan Dutt Tiwari, Ram Vilas Paswan, Bhajan Lal, Anand Mohan, Ajit Singh, S Bangarappa--all failed to leave any mark as a political unit. Either they had to merge their entity with a big political party, or stand as individuals.

And this importance isn't without reason. Today, not a single leader in Samajwadi Party can claim to not having succumbed to taking personal favours from Amar Singh. Leaders like Singh keep all proofs on record, which works as a fear psychology for rest of their colleagues, forever. In such situations, it is not easy for the captain or other senior players to ignore them.

In the era of alliance politics, when the roles of regional parties become important, the roles of such politicians becomeu00a0 imperative. Though they have no mass base, but they have good relationships with industrialists and even with leaders of rival parties. They believe, every metal can be melted though at different temperatures, and they know just the right ones to work on just about everyone.

Singh can be discredited for many things, but at least he can be credited with making politics popular in B-town and beyond.

The current crisis in Samajwadi party must be more disturbing for Mulayam Singh than Amar Singh, as leaders like the latter simply enjoy controversy and have a strong to stand it. In an interview to MiD DAY, he had said, "Life'd be dull otherwise."u00a0

Before leaving for Dubai to celebrate New Year's, Singh had spoken to me at length. "I will try to get rid of my anger, petty prejudices and the dislike against my rivals so that I achieve purity of soul," he had said. Promises broken in the first week. But who cares, no one's weak!