New Delhi: The anti-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) grand alliance suffered a rude jolt on Thursday when the Samajwadi Party announced its decision to contest the upcoming Bihar assembly polls alone.
The decision was announced by the senior Samajwadi Party leader Prof. Ram Gopal Yadav in the Uttar Pradesh capital, Lucknow, following the party’s Parliamentary Board meeting.
“Samajwadi Party Parliamentary Board has decided to contest Bihar elections independently. Talks are on with other parties. When we were in alliance, the bigger parties in the alliance should have consulted the smaller parties before deciding on seats,” he said.
Samajwadi Party, which rules Uttar Pradesh, has negligible presence in neighbouring Bihar. Bihar’s grand alliance was being seen as a precursor to the ultimate merger of about half a dozen regional parties that have socialist leanings. Samajwadi Party’s decision to walk out of it, many feel, may have marginal impact in Bihar, but will come in the way of the socialist unity.
The grand alliance now has three constituents, namely the state’s ruling Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress party. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had walked out of the merger after it was allocated only three seats.
These three parties had initially refused to set aside any seat for the Samajwadi Party. The party was later offered five seats — three originally allocated to the NCP and two from the RJD quota, as against at least 12 seats the Samajwadi Party wanted.
That the Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav was unhappy with the deal was obvious when he decided to skip the rally of the grand alliance held in Bihar’s capital, Patna, on Sunday. He had sent his younger brother Shivpal Yadav.
The latest development has come has a boon for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance as the Samajwadi Party, despite its negligible presence, is capable of denting the Yadav vote bank of the RJD, led by chief Lalu Prasad Yadav.
At the same time, it’s seen as a loss of face for Yadav since he had taken upon himself the responsibility of persuading his “relative” Mulayam Singh Yadav. Yadav’s youngest daughter married into the Mulayam Singh Yadav family.
“Mulayam has distanced himself because Lalu-Nitish [Yadav-Kumar] are losing,” BJP spokesperson G V L Narasimha Rao said.
RJD and incumbent Bihar chief minister Kumar joined hands after two decades of intense rivalry as the BJP swept parliamentary polls in Bihar. They are locked in a tough contest against BJP-led NDA for the 243-member Bihar assembly, elections for which are expected to be held in October-November this year.
