A different coalition dharma

While Amar Singh had cited coalition dharma to flay the Congress for its alleged role in the defection of four Samajwadi Party MLAs in Madhya Pradesh some time back, the SP leader engineered a similar defection in the ruling party’s camp. Until about two months back, Abid Khan, the Congress-SP’s joint nominee for Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh, was a loyalist and close confidante of Ahmed Patel, political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Khan, a former Aligarh Muslim University students’ union president, has strong links with Muslim clerics. Singh used one of his close aides, Rajesh Dixit, to wean Khan away from Patel. During talks to choose the Rajya Sabha candidate, both Congress nominee Salman Khursheed and SP nominee Abu Asim Azmi ruled each other out. That was when Amar Singh came up with Khan’s name, and Ahmed Patel raised no objection.