‘Jaya kept Mulayam meetings secret’
The expelled Samajwadi leader Amar Singh revealed that Jaya Bachchan had kept her meetings with Mulayan Singh in April-May a secret, however, he bore no grudge against her. Speaking exclusively to this newspaper about the cracks appearing between him and the Bachchans after his expulsion, Mr Singh clarified. “No cracks from
my side. My feelings for Amitji, Abhishek, Shweta and Aishwarya remain the same.” And Jaya Bachchan? He replied: “I am concerned for her, since she is a friend’s wife and mother of Abhishek and Shweta.” He then quipped, “If the family allows, politically, Jayaji can be bigger than me. She is more pragmatic.”
Mr Singh refuses to accept that he had any influence or role on Jaya Bachchan’s decision to reject the Rajya Sabha seat offered by the SP as a “reward” for being “loyal to Mulayam Singh”. He claimed that “Jayaji would have accepted the nomination, if the family allowed her.” He also pointed out that the SP “could not have nominated her for Rajya Sabha without her consent.”
Mr Singh, who kept repeating that he “bears no grudge against Jayaji,” also revealed that she refused to divulge her meetings with Mulayam Singh at the Bachchans’ Gulmohar Park residence in the national capital sometime in April-May this year.
The expelled SP leader said that Jaya Bachchan “kept telling me, Mulayam Singh does not speak to her, does not receive her calls and that she is not in touch with him.” Mr Singh feels that her husband Amitabh Bachchan was also perhaps “not aware of the meetings between Jayaji and Mulayam Singh in Delhi.” He argued in such “independent, professionally successful and high-profile families, it’s not necessary to discuss everything.”
Describing her as an “aggressively independent person and self-opinionated,” Mr Singh recalled one of her remarks to him: “Amar Singhji, I respect your views and you ought to respect mine,” Ms Bachchan reportedly told him.
The “straightforward”, “practical” Jaya Bachchan had once “bluntly” told him: “Amar Singhji, please do not expect intense reciprocity. Everyone is not the same. Reminding that she was in Rajya Sabha and politics because of him, Mr Singh declared: “I do not miss her socially or politically, but I do miss her emotionally.”
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