LUCKNOW: In a jolt to the “grand alliance” in Bihar, the Samajwadi Party today pulled out of the Nitish-Lalu combine, saying it felt “humiliated” at not being consulted on seat sharing and decided to contest the Assembly elections in the state on its own.
SP National General Secretary Ram Gopal Yadav told reporters here that “In Bihar the party will contest separately. The bigger parties in the alliance did not consult us while declaring seats due to which the SP felt humiliated.
This is not the ‘gatbandhan dharma'”.
The SP is a major constituent of a six-party combine which had met early this year in Delhi in which all the Janata Parivar groups decided to merge together to take on the BJP at the national level.
The decision on Bihar was taken at a party parliamentary board meeting here in the presence of SP national President Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Yadav said it was the duty of the major constituents to consult the SP before deciding over seat sharing.
“We came to know about this through the media. This is not ‘gatbandhan dharma’ and SP felt humiliated,” he said.
Yadav said the party was not happy with the paltry two or five seats offered out of the 243 in the state assembly.
“We will win much more seats by contesting on our own as compared to that being offered by the alliance. We will contest respectfully,” he said.
On the future of ‘Janata Parivar’, Yadav said at that time itself he had said that he would not sign the “death warrant” of the party.
“Respecting the sentiments of the party workers, SP has decided to go all alone in Bihar Assembly elections,” he said.
The JD-U and Lalu Prasad-led RJD have been allotted 100 seats each while the Congress got 40. The NCP was allotted three seats.
–PTI
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