Akhilesh camp submitted forged signatures to EC, claims Amar Singh

A day after Samajwadi Party leader Ramgopal Yadav submitted affidavits to the Election Commission to prove majority support for Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav-led faction, Rajya Sabha MP Amar Singh on Sunday claimed that the signatures of support are forged and hence their authenticity is doubtful.

"The numbers of MLAs supporting you matters when a government has to be formed. It's not the same for party symbol," Singh told ANI in an exclusive conversation.

Reiterating his support for Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, the Rajya Sabha MP said the national executive meeting called earlier on January 1 was not legal.

"Only elected president has right to call national executive meeting and no one can ignore the fact that Mulayam Singh Yadav was then the party president," he said.

Singh also trained his guns on Akhilesh loyalist Ramgopal, saying it was unconstitutional as per the party's constitution to cancel the latter's ouster from the Samajwadi Party.

Singh further said that they would stake claim to the party's name and symbol tomorrow.

"We will visit the Election Commission on Monday and will give our memorandum. We will submit the list of old office bearers appointed before 1st of January," he added.

Asserting that prime facie the party led by incumbent Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister is the real Samajwadi Party,

Ramgopal yesterday said that relevant documents, brought in "seven cartons with more than 1.5 lakh pages", were submitted to the poll panel to assert Akhilesh's right over the party name and symbol.

He said that he submitted affidavits of 4,716 delegates of the total 5,731, indicating overwhelming support for Akhilesh.

The Election Commission had given both sides time till January 9 to submit proof of their legislative support.