New Delhi: Half a dozen regional parties have agreed to merge their identities and form a new national party in a bid to provide Indian voters a third option in upcoming state polls.

Bihar’s ruling Janata Dal (United), Uttar Pradesh’s ruling Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Janata Dal (Secular), Indian National Lok Dal, the erstwhile ruling parties of Bihar, Karnataka and Haryana respectively, along with a non-descript Samajwadi Janata Party floated by former prime minister Chandra Shekhar will come together to form the new political outfit.

The new party is expected to come into being by the end of this month.

Janata Dal (United) general secretary K.C. Tyagi said that the new party would be either called Samajwadi Janata Dal or Samajwadi Janata Party.

Tyagi made this announcement following a meeting of the representatives of these parties held in Bihar’s capital Patna on Wednesday.

Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, who is set to head the new party, will start the follow-up action by talking to the former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda and the Indian National Lok Dal senior leader Abhay Chautala to bring the fragmented socialist outfits under one political umbrella. All these parties were born out of the Janata Dal which split into various smaller parties in the 1990s.

The proposed new party will adopt electoral symbol bicycle and red and green flag of the Samajwadi Party.

Efforts to bring these parties with similar ideologies were made on various occasions in the past under the defunct Third Front, the sudden emergence of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the national horizon made these socialist leaders famous for squabbling in the past see red as their existence came under stake with the BJP sweeping to power on its own in 2014 general elections.

At the same time, the equally surprising decline of the Congress party over the past 16 months at the national level and in various states has given the Indian socialists hope that there is scope and a role for them in national politics, if they came together.

While initial talks in this regards were held in many phases the progress was extremely slow considering these parties had their reservations of sharing their assets and roles. However, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s masterstroke of seeking a personal meeting with his friend-turned-foe Prime Minister Narendra Modi jolted these leaders into action.

The Modi-Kumar meeting followed reports that BJP’s ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) would favour the revival of a BJP-JD (U) alliance for the upcoming Bihar assembly polls which is scheduled to be held in October this year.

The various stakeholders of the proposed new party on Wednesday agreed that its formation cannot be delayed any further if they intend to make a winning debut with Bihar polls. They would be followed by equally crucial state polls in Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka in 2017 and 2018 respectively.

The Modi-led BJP is eyeing power in these three states as part of its bid to prepare the right wing party for second consecutive victory in 2019 general elections with increased strength.