A day after his party pulled out of the Janata Dal (United)-led grand alliance in Bihar, Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh heard out JD(U) president Sharad Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad at his residence here on Friday — but failed to give any assurance.
All that the SP leader said was that he would have to consult his party colleagues: he is flying to Lucknow on Saturday.
However, Mr. Sharad Yadav, speaking to The Hindu after he called on the SP leader on Friday (for the second time in two days), continued to express his confidence that all issues would be sorted out: “Mulayam Singhji and I have worked together for so long: the alliance was there, the alliance is there and it will continue to remain intact.” He also said that the sharing of seats was not the key problem. Mr. Lalu Prasad, on his part, said, “All eyes are on Bihar: the issue is not of seats but of keeping communal forces at bay. Every individual is important and Sharadji and I told Netaji [Mulayam Singh] that he needed to shoulder the greatest responsibility in this battle as he is our guardian. We need to sit and thrash this matter out so that a secular, socialist government can be formed in Bihar.”
Meanwhile, SP sources told The Hindu that a sequence of events had culminated in the decision of its parliamentary board on Thursday to pull out of the alliance. One, the party was upset that even though Mr. Mulayam Singh had been accepted as the president of the proposed new party, he was not consulted on seat-sharing for the coming Bihar polls. Two, when the division was announced, the JD(U), the RJD, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) were mentioned — but not the SP. After the NCP walked out of the alliance last week as it was upset at being given just three seats, the alliance leaders agreed to give the SP five seats — a number it described as an insult.
Finally, the SP was offended that while Mr. Nitish Kumar — who is now the grand alliance’s Chief Ministerial candidate, thanks to the efforts of Mr. Mulayam Singh — had had meetings with Congress president Sonia Gandhi on seat-sharing, he had chosen not to meet the SP supremo.
