Natwar Singh looking to join Mayawati's party

Bhupendra Chaubey / CNN-IBN
Published on Sat, Jun 14, 2008 at 18:34 in Nation section

New Delhi: Several leaders like K Natwar Singh and Bhajan Lal who are out from their parent parties are now looking at the BSP as their option.
Natwar has been forced to reconsider his political future after he tried reaching out to the Samawadi Party, but Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh bent backwards to mend their relations with Congress President Sonia Gandhi.
Having bitterly opposed the BJP all his life Natwar Singh is now knocking on the doors of BSP.
"I think Mayawati is a great leader. She is bound to have an impact in Rajasthan. I am going to campaign against the Congress vigorously," says the former external affairs minister.
Though he doesn't want to run the risk of fighting an election without the powerful election support of a big party like the Congress, for the moment he is only focusing on giving a good platform to his son Jagat.
Like his father, Jagat is also a victim of the Oil for Food scam.
"I am running 79, so I don't think I should be fighting elections. Jagat has a bright future ahead of him," say Natwar.
The father-son duo is not alone in hoping for a political resurrection by hopping onto Mayawati's bandwagon.
In Karnataka PGR Scindhia did the same, in Haryana Bhajan Lal is in advanced state of negotiations and in UP Akhilesh Das has already rebelled against Rahul Gandhi and joined the BSP camp.
Mayawati is presenting herself as the only viable alternative to all those who don't want to do business with the two national parties.
From Himachal Pradesh to Gujarat, it's a strategy that has worked well for her.
As for the Congress, this will be bad news as in her success lies the party's grand old failure.

Natwar Singh is a pathetic fellow. Having got caught in a scam (how many would he have committed without anyone being the wiser for it?) and thrown out of the Congress, where he was the chief cheerleader of the Nehru family, he is still pompous enough to declare his innocence. Mayawati has nothing to lose by giving him and his son tickets in Rajasthan, while bagging a formerly powerful politician into her kitty. It is better he retired from public life and wrote an autobiography of his colourful life. It would do justice to the great talent he has in English literature.