Putting all speculations of rethinking and reconciliation at rest, the Samajwadi Party has announced to contest all the 243 Assembly seats in Bihar on its own.
The announcement has also dashed the hopes of the JD(U) and RJD leaders that Mulayam Singh Yadav would eventually reconcile and return back to the grand alliance. Earlier JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav and RJD supremo lalu Prasad tried their best to mollify Mulayam but their efforts yielded no result.
Here on Monday, Bihar unit president of Samajwadi Party Ramchandra Singh Yadav said, "We will confront the communalism on the one hand and betrayal on the other. Our party ahs decided to take on both evils."
Yadav said after the Parliamentary Board meeting of the SP, the party supremo took decision that the party will field candidates on each seat in Bihar. Hitting at Chief Minister
Nitish Kumar, Yadav said it was Netaji who made Nitish CM face of the grand alliance but he did not follow even the minimum courtesy of calling on Mulayam and instead went to meet Rahul Gandhi. Even the grand alliance was the brainchild of Mulayam, he added.
It is not the first time that SP will contest Bihar Assembly polls without any alliance. The party, which has little organizational set up in Bihar, suffered humiliating defeats in 2005 and 2010 and deposits of all its candidates were forfeited. Only once in 2000, its two candidates were elected from Purnia but later they had joined RJD. "SP's presence in Bihar is as strong as RJD and JD(U)'s in Uttar Pradesh," commented a JD(U) office bearer.
Ironically, the BJP and its allies are taking pleasure in the development in the Maha gathbandhan and its leaders are taking potshots at Nitish and lalu Prasad and praising Mulayam for his bold' step.
Bihar Information and Public Relations Minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary retaliated in a statement on Monday saying that the Samajwadi episode has made BJP leaders over excited and they seemed more concerned about the Maha gathbandhan ignoring the contradictions in their own alliance.
"Their keen interest in this matter gives suspicion about their possible involvement and role in this episode. Those sitting in an alliance as fragile as glass should show some restraint Our alliance is solid and its motive is clear. It has made its leader known and shared the seats. On the other hand neither seat sharing finalised in NDA nor leader selected. The differences boiling there may explode any time to expose the strength of their unity," said Chaudhary.