Giving a new twist to the merger of Janata Parivar constituents, which had been put on a back burner after some technical issues were raised by a leader of Samajwadi Party, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said he did not see any technical obstacle in the merger process. He also denied there was any internal difference over the issue.
A week after the statement of senior SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav that the merger could not be materialised due to some technical issues before the Bihar Assembly elections, Nitish told the media at the sidelines of his janata darbar that the merger has already been finalised and declared with SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav as its head. He suggested that Mulayam should convene a meeting of the committee he constituted at the earliest to discuss the matter and give people the correct picture. The seven-member committee chaired by Mulayam comprises presidents of all the six parties including JD(U) and RJD.
"If the meeting decides that merger cannot take place right now then we will discuss other options," he said, when asked about the electoral alliance with the RJD before going into Assembly polls. "For me there is no technical issue and even if there is one, we can discuss and solve it instead of making it a controversial issue. The committee is supposed to finalise the name, symbol and a flag of the merged entity. The views expressed by Ram Gopal Yadav are of advisory nature, but Mulayam has not made any comment on this topic. The only person empowered to take a decision is Mulayam," said Nitish and added that JD(U) is committed on the merger and lalu Prasad also subscribed to the view.
Commenting on the Election Commission's hint of Bihar Assembly polls in September and October, the CM said it was not unexpected. But, he added, there is still quite good time for a merger or alliance. "We have enough time to take a decision and move further after a consensus decision at the meeting," he said.
As per the indications, only 100 days are left for the crucial Assembly elections for which a time table is expected to be announced by the first week of June. Not only the JD(U) and RJD, even the NDA partners are yet to initiate formal talks for the seat sharing. The NDA constituents BJP, lJP and RlSP have declared they are ready to go for polls, but so far no formal meeting has been held to finalise the seat sharing. A controversy sparked when a senior RJD leader Raghubansh Prasad Singh stated that his party would claim over 145 seats as per the performance of the party in the last year's general election.