The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) on Tuesday set aside speculations on a fissure with alliance partner Samajwadi Party following the absence of their MLAs from the SP’s mock Assembly proceedings outside Vidhan Bhawan in protest against price rise and other public issues in UP on Monday.
National convenor of Team RLD Anupam Mishra said, “It was BJP’s ploy to spread rumours of cracks between the two parties. We both protested against the Government on the first day of the Monsoon Session. Our programme was fixed earlier than SP’s and our MLAs could not take part in the SP protest,” he said.
Mishra said RLD MLAs staged a protest at the farmers’ messiah statue at Vidhan Bhawan.
“We protested against the UP Government’s anti-public, anti-farmer, anti-labourer policies and other issues.
“In a democracy, sometimes the political parties in opposition stage protest against the government in a way that is decided by their respective chiefs and this should not be seen as a mark of rift between them because they all are on the same page when it comes to highlighting people’s issues,” he said.
RLD national spokesman, Anil Dubey termed the reports of differences between RLD and SP as rumours and said, “We protested against the BJP Government for its anti-public and anti-farmers policies. The mock Assembly was SP’s plan and it was successful. We are on the same page when it comes to staging protests against the BJP on people’s issues.”