The Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav attacked the Nitish Kumar led secular grand alliance of Bihar on Sunday. SP chief besides listing the achievements of his party’s government in the state targeted both lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar for including the Congress in the secular grand alliance. Earlier in September citing its humiliation for being allotted only 5 seats the SP had walked out of the grand alliance. The SP has formed a third front in Bihar comprising of total six parties.
A day before the first phase of polling for the Bihar state assembly elections on Monday Mulayam Singh Yadav kicked off the campaigne in Bihar from Bhabua, the district headquarter of Kaimur district. Bhabua is 120 Km from Sonbhadra district of UP. On Sunday SP chief held one meeting at Bhabua where he campaigned for Neetu Singh wife of Ram Chandra Yadav, the state president of Bihar unit of the SP.
To attract the youth UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav will campaign in Bihar on Monday and address elections meetings in Rohtas, Aurangabad and Gaya.
Targeting the grand alliance , SP chief said, "How can lalu and Nitish Kumar join hands with the Congress , they have stabbed in the back of the loknayak Jai Prakash Narayan who not only fought the tyrant Congress regime in 1974-15 he was sent to jail during the emergency. lalu and Nitish have joined hands with the same Congress’’. Drawing a clear distinction between the poersonal relation and politics Mulayam Singh said RsRs lalu Yadav is my relative after the marriage of my grandson with his daughter, this relations will last for several generations but they will have no bearing on politics’’.
The SP is contesting 146 out of the 243 seats in Bihar state assembly. Rest of the seats it has given to its five allies Nationalist Congress Party, a party led by former lok Sabha Speaker PA Sangma; Samajwadi janata Dal led by former Union minister Devendra Yadav and a small political outfit led by rebel Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Pappu Yadav. Several ministers and party office bearers including ministers Om Prakash Singh, Ambika Chowdhary, Ram govind chowdhary Narad Rai and party general secretary Kironmay nanda and Rajiv Rai are camping in Bihar.
Good showing in Bihar could help the SP to regain its status as a national party. In July 2009, the Election Commission had derecognized the SP as a national party following its poor showing in the 2009 lok Sabha elections in states other than UP. To have the national party status, a party should get enough votes to be recognized as a regional party in at least four states.
"We are contesting the election in Bihar Assembly to regain the recognition as regional party in Bihar. We were a recognised regional party in Bihar but lost the status after the 2009 Parliament elections. The SP had contested the 2005 Bihar Assembly elections and had won four seats. This time, we are confident of improving our performance and garnering the required percentage of votes to regain our status in Bihar," said OBCs welfare minister Ambika Chowdhary.