The reverberation among its minority ranks is just one factor that will lead to a relook. SP insiders familiar with the party's working post-2008 aver that as for Amar Singh, things are not going to be the same again.

For, Amar Singh's utility to the party has outlived its very purpose. True, the 14-year-long symbiotic personal relationship between Mulayam and his Man Friday had at times come under strain. Yet it endured because Mulayam found the urbane, Angrezi-speaking political dealer had enormous capacity to get things done for him. His contacts with business, corporate and Bollywood world made him the party's main fund-raiser. Initially, he was used as an errand man - for sensitive negotiations with others, bulldoze the rivals through media campaign and even to 'modernise' the old OBC party.

However, during the past decade a new generation of activists and apparatchik has emerged within the party. The Mulayam family has developed its own in-house leaders, visible and not so visible, capable of doing negotiations for the party. If Mulayam's cousin Ram Gopal Yadav had piloted anti-Amar mobilization, the patch-up negotiations were also led by son Akhilesh Yadav. Like the Karunanidhi clan in south, the Yadav house is fast becoming the SP's decision-making centre. Its leaders can now do better interaction with outside leaders and parties.

Complaints against Amar Singh are aplenty. He is charged with going beyond the 'Netaji's' brief and getting the party into trouble. At times, they say, Mulayam's rustic wisdom and intuition had checkmated Amar's political brinkmanship. Hence sections in SP view Amar more as a liability than an asset. They cite how Amar Singh had awfully failed in some of the crucial tasks assigned to him by Mulayam. When SP came to power, Amar was made chairman of the UP industrial development board with great expectations of industrializing the backward UP. The idea was to establish Mulayam as UP's development man. However, despite his corporate contacts, Anil Ambani's power plant - which is now in trouble - became the sole showpiece. And the whole project flopped.

Mulayam had deputed Amar Singh, a Rajput, to mobilize upper caste support for SP, chiefly as a counter to Mayawati's highly successful Sarvjan Abhiyan and bhaichara. But after a few grandiose rallies, he got distracted by other ventures. The SP's biggest tragedy has been that it lost its very focus. It is rapidly losing its image as a party of backward classes, poor and minorities. This at a time when even the Nitin Gadkari-led BJP is trying for a pro-poor makeover. It is one thing to get Sanjay Dutt or Mumbai glams to campaign during the polls. But the move to turn the party into an elite club has not gone well with Mulayam's core constituency. Mindless involvement with outside biggies, too much political brokering for short-term benefits and rabble-rousing on frivolous issues have dented whatever positive image the SP had in the past.

SP's minority supporters no more conceal the fears that the party, in its anxiety to be 'modern,' has been distancing itself from the 'Maulana Mulayam' days. The best evidence of this is the universal jubilation among the SP's minority leaders when Amar Singh resigned. There were celebrations in many places. Mofussil leaders like Mehbub Ali, MLA and Iqbal Mohmmed rushed to Delhi to press for accepting the resignation but were persuaded to lay low. Clearly, there is truth in Mulayam cousin Ram Gopal Yadav's claim that '98 per cent' of the party - barring the Mumbai crowd - is against Amar Singh. This aversion is born out of the fact that he had taken the party from blunder to blunder in spite of Netaji's leash.

Minority sections had felt greatly uneasy when Amar Singh bamboozled the party into supporting the India-US nuclear deal, letting down the Left, SP's long-time secular ally. And what did the party gain? Barring the promise to freeze cases against the SP's first family and Amar Singh - like the old Lalu cases - every reason cited to support the Congress has gone phut. The first blow came when Congress denied important cabinet posts to the SP's big two. Amar had convinced party leaders with the figures showing that a Congress-SP tie-up in UP could bring 40-50 Lok Sabha seats for the party. This was to be the main lure of the SP-Congress deal in July, 2008. But, again, the party was ditched, and suffered a drubbing while Congress improved its tally. Finally, a triumphant Congress later refused to accommodate the SP in UPA2.

Amar Singh is also blamed for the rupture of relationship with Beni Prasad Verma, a veteran Kurmi leader. Rahul Gandhi was quick to embrace him and made substantial electoral gains. Chasing away trusted Mulayam supporters with mass base is aimed at making himself indispensable for Mulayam. Rightly or wrongly, of late this had become a pattern. SP's traditional standing among the minorities, once its trusted supporters, has suffered a severed setback with the desertion of Azam Khan, in protest against the imposition of Jayaprada, an Amar Singh protégé, as candidate in Rampur. Salim Shervani, a highly respected Muslim leader, also quit the SP.

The most devastating blunder has been the tie-up with Kalyan Singh who, Muslims claim, was responsible for the Babri masjid demolition. It was a thoughtless move worked out on the basis of dull statistics to presume that addition of Kalyan's caste votes will give SP majority in a large number of constituencies. But it had ignored the angry responses from the minorities. Unfortunately, even Mulayam could not prevent the disaster.

Clearly, Mayawati and Rahul Gandhi are the two beneficiaries of SP's frequent flip-flops. Both are at work to woo the deserting minorities with fresh lures. Hence despite her chaotic rule and involvement in scandals, Mayawati has been steadily tightening her grip on the voters. Her target is minorities and other core backers of SP. The trend is substantiated by the election results since the SP had hobnobbed with the Congress in mid-2008 and later with Kalyan Singh. Rahul Gandhi, in his expansion plan, relies on the minority sections who feel uncomfortable in SP. Irrespective of what happens to Amar Singh, these factors will continue to haunt Mulayam Singh. (IPA Service)