Patna: Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) President Lalu Prasad on Tuesday announced that his party will not contest the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh due early next year. Instead, his party will support Mulayam Singh Yadav, head of the ruling Samajwadi Party to stop division of “secular votes”.
“My party will not contest the assembly elections in UP but will indeed work towards strengthening the secular forces,” Prasad told the media here today adding his prime objective was to stop division of secular votes at all costs and defeat “communal forces” raising its head in the country.
He asserted he would work for strengthening the hands of Yadav. “SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav is my ‘sambandhi’ and I will definitely take special care of him,” Prasad clarified.
The announcement assumes much political significance given the fact that the ruling Janata Dal United (JD-U) in Bihar headed by chief minister Nitish Kumar has charted out its separate course of action and has focused its full attention on the UP polls this time. Kumar has already held six rallies in different pockets of the state to win support of the masses. JD-U is a coalition partner of the RJD in the ruling Grand Alliance government in Bihar.
Initially, Prasad had maintained silence over the issue but now he has made it amply clear that he will be backing the SP against the JD-U in the upcoming up polls. “Apparently Prasad’s ‘matrimonial alliance’ with Yadav’s family tilted the game in SP’s favour although the RJD has no presence in India’s most populous state,” commented a political expert.
Prasad’s youngest daughter Raj Laxmi is married to Tej Pratap Singh Yadav, a parliamentarian who is grand nephew of the SP president. Yadav represents Mainpuri seat (UP) in parliament.
Experts say Kumar’s move to contest UP elections looks more aimed at settling political scores with the SP chief who had tried to divide secular votes in the just-held Bihar elections by fielding its candidates on many seats although the move failed, than winning the elections. “He (Kumar) looks more interested in dividing secular votes to spoil poll chances of the SP even to a little extent,” explained observers, saying both the RJD and JD-U have just no presence in the UP.
They are not wrong. In the last 2012 UP assembly polls, RJD had fielded candidates on four seats but they all lost. Likewise, the JD-U had fielded candidates on 219 seats but they all forfeited their security deposits, polling just 0.26 per cent votes.
