Rajya Sabha MP Amar Singh passes away in Singapore hospital after prolonged illness

In a major development, former Samajwadi Party leader and Rajya Sabha MP Amar Singh passed away on Saturday in a hospital in Singapore. Singh had been ailing at a hospital in Singapore for the past six months. Singh had earlier undergone a kidney transplant in 2013. He was 64.

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Singh's ill-health & regrets on Bachchan fallout

The former SP leader and once-close confidante of Superstar Amitabh Bachchan tweeted in March that he was undergoing treatment for kidney ailments in Singapore. He had expressed hopes of 'returning with double energy' while dismissing rumours of his death. In a video message, he said, "Whoever is spreading this fake news, I thank you very much.”

Recently, Singh had grabbed the headlines when he expressed regret over his fallout with Bachchan. In February on the occasion of his father's death anniversary, Singh had tweeted that at his deathbed, he regretted his over-reaction against Amitabh and his family. Singh  who had been close with the Bachchans 1990s, soured after he quit the Samajwadi Party (SP) in 2010 and was jailed in Tihar for alleged bribery, as per reports

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Amar Singh's political-Bollywood career

Amar Singh who was a close friend of the Bachchans since 1990s, helped Bachchan revive his debt-ridden Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Limited (ABCL) in 2003. Stepping in as the vice-chairman of the company, he was publically referred to as a 'younger brother' by Big B. Singh also reportedly helped launch actor Jaya Bachchan's political career in the Samajwadi Party in 2004. The actor was elected to the Rajya Sabha and has since then held the position.

Singh himself was elected to the Rajya Sabha four times - in 1996, 2002,2008 and 2016.  He held several posts on several parliamentary commissions since then but was most known as SP's go-to man for swinging political support to SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav in Delhi. He shot to fame when he saved the UPA-1 government by pledging support of 39 MPs when it was reduced to a minority as CPI withdrew its support to the coalition over the proposed Nuclear Accord with the United States.

Moreover, Singh had also managed to talk Mulayam Singh Yadav against supporting UPA-1's coalition in the beginning when Dr. Singh had been named Prime Minister. Apart from making and breaking UPA's support, Singh had also managed to convince US President Bill Clinton to attend a banquet in his honour in Lucknow in 2005, elevating Mulayam Singh Yadav's stature in Delhi. Singh who was also close to Ambanis and Bachchans wielded power in both Delhi and Mumbai for the SP.

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His fallout from SP

Singh's political stardom turned when he resigned from the SP over a rift with Yadav along with actress-turned-politician Jaya Prada in 2010. While Jaya Prada has since then joined the BJP, Singh was subsequently charged in 2011 for bribing three MPs to support Manmohan Singh’s UPA-I government during a trust vote in 2008. After serving a brief stint in Tihar jail in 2011, his relations with the Bachchans too soured as he said, "Bachchan only came after I was granted bail and was in the hospital. I was very cold and formal with him because he waited," according to the book Behind Bars: Prison Tales of India’s Most Famous.

He also floated his own political party - Rashtriya Lok Manch in 2011, but failed to win a single seat in Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls in 2012. In 2016, he was elected to Rajya Sabha with support from the Samajwadi Party inspite of stiff opposition from Akhilesh Yadav. Due to ill-health, he underwent a kidney transplant in 2013 and since then had been undergoing treatment ever since.

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