Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party has walked out of the Janata Parivar in Bihar following differences over the number of seats that its leadership wanted to contest in the state Assembly elections scheduled to be held sometime in October and November.
Samajwadi Party, which has a negligible presence in Bihar, had been given five seats by the Janata Dal United-Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress alliance. Intially the Mulayam led party was not given any seat by the JDU-RJD-Congress alliance and only after Samajwadi party’s Bihar unit raised a hue and cry, it was allotted five seats – two from the RJD quota and three given to the Nationalist Congress Party which has also decided to contest alone.
“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,” said senior leader Ram Gopal Yadav.
“We don’t want to speculate and if need be, we will speak to some other parties for support but it’s not on the table as of now,” added Ram Gopal Yadav.
Mulayam’s party was upset at being sidelined. Samajwadi Party leaders said Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad had accommodated Congress at their cost. Mulayam hads skipped the Swabhiman Rally organized in Patna on August 30 by the JDU-RJD-Congress Mahagathbandhan and sent Shivpal Singh Yadav for the same.
JDU spokesperson KC Tyagi called Samajwadi Party walking out of the Janat parivar “an unfortunate incident” while RJD’s Manoj Jha, too, said that it could have been avoided.
Both JDU and RJD are Bihar based parties and were rivals for almost two decades but they came together following the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance’s superlative show in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The NDA won 31 out of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar completely decimating its rivals.
