 "SP walks out of 'grand alliance' in Bihar")
The Samajwadi Party (SP) on Thursday walked out of the ‘grand alliance’ that plans to take on the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance in the Bihar Assembly polls. The SP said it wasn’t consulted in the seat-sharing talks and felt “humiliated” at not being allotted a fair share of seats. The party also slammed the putative merger of the Janata Parivar political parties under one flag as a non-starter.
It announced it would contest as many of the 243 seats as possible.On Thursday evening, the Janata Dal (United)’s Sharad Yadav met SP chief Mulayam Singh and urged him to remain a part of the grand alliance.
On condition of anonymity, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader attributed the SP’s decision to its “deep anti-Congressism”. The Congress is part of the grand alliance in Bihar.
SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav had played a key role in bringing Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad and the JD(U)’s Nitish Kumar together to put up a joint front in Bihar.
In a related development, RJD vice-president Raghunath Jha announced he was joining the BJP.
The turn of events that led to the SP falling out with its allies spawned much speculation. Ram Gopal Yadav, the SP’s national spokesperson, dismissed conjectures that the decision had anything to do with Mulayam Singh’s meeting with the PM on Friday, or his own meeting with BJP chief Amit Shah recently. He also denied discussing with Shah a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into a corruption case against former Noida Authority chief engineer Yadav Singh.
“Why should we have any fear in the Yadav Singh case? An inquiry should be conducted if any person has committed irregularities, and others should also be probed. You and we all know who Yadav Singh was close to,” Ram Gopal Yadav said.
He added his party’s decision was based on feedback from its Bihar unit. Merging with the ‘Janata Parivar’ was akin to signing one’s death warrant, he added.
BJP leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy termed the SP’s move its near-admission that the BJP-led alliance would triumph in the Bihar elections, scheduled for October.
SP has become the second party to quit the ‘grand alliance’, after the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). The NCP was unhappy at being given only three seats to contest. On August 12, the JD (U) and the RJD decided to contest 100 seats each, and the Congress 40.
The RJD chief offered the SP two seats from his party’s quota and three from the NCP’s.
Ram Gopal Yadav said his party had come to know of the seat-sharing formula from the media. On whether divisions in the Janata Parivar would help communal forces, he retorted: “Was there a division of secular votes in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh when the BJP won?”
In the monsoon session of Parliament, Mulayam Singh had come in for praise by the PM for trying to break a parliamentary logjam. On his part, the SP chief was critical of the Congress for not letting Parliament function.
SAMAJWADI PARTY’S ‘PRACTICAL’ POLITICS
1999: After the fall of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee govt, Congress President Sonia Gandhi prepared to stake claim and announced she had the support of 272 MPs, including SP MPs, but Mulayam Singh Yadav (pictured) later withdrew his offer, forcing another Lok Sabha election
2002: SP had promised to support the Left’s presidential candidate, Lakshmi Sehgal, but later ditched the party to put its weight behind the NDA’s presidential candidate, A P J Abdul Kalam
2008: The SP was a trenchant critic of the India-US nuclear deal but, nearly overnight, decided to support and bail out the Manmohan Singh government on the issue
2012: West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and Mulayam Singh Yadav announced their intent to look for a neutral face to be the presidential candidate. Three days later, the SP chief announced his party’s support for Pranab Mukherjee, leaving Banerjee embarrassed
2012: The SP was anti-FDI in multi-brand retail, but bailed out the UPA by abstaining from voting in both Houses
2015: Mulayam criticised the Congress for disrupting the monsoon session of Parliament on the Lalit Modi and Vyapam controversies; Modi praised Mulayam for trying to break the parliamentary logjam
- SP has five MPs in the Lok Sabha and is the third-largest party in the Rajya Sabha, with 15 MPs. Its RS tally is set to increase, with 11 MPs from UP, including six from BSP, set to retire in 2016
- Elections to the UP Assembly are due in 2017; the Modi government has been generous in release of funds to the Akhilesh Yadav government for development projects
- JD(U) & Left leaders point to a case of corruption the CBI is investigating against Noida authority engineer Yadav Singh as a factor