The Mulayam Singh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party exited the "grand alliance", Janata Parivar, of JD(U), RJD and the Congress on Thursday, and declared it would contest the upcoming Bihar assembly polls on its own.
Addressing a press conference in Lucknow after the parliamentary board meeting on Thursday, party general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav said that SP was ignored when decisions on seat sharing were made.
"We were not consulted on seat-sharing and we felt insulted, thus the party's parliamentary board has decided to contest elections separately. I knew this situation would arise and I will not willingly sign on the death warrant of the party," Livemint quoted Gopal Yadav as saying.
"We will fight the (Bihar) election independently and with our full might," Yadav added, according to IANS. Gopal Yadav said that SP's Bihar unit will prepare a list of candidates for the assembly elections scheduled to be held in October this year.
Reacting to SP's decision, RJD leaders said that they will request Mulayam Singh Yadav to reconsider his decision. "Mulayam ji will be requested to reconsider his decision and we are confident that he will rethink about it," Vashisht Narayan told ANI.
"Sab logon ko hum manaa lenge, secular parties ko saath ana hai aur BJP ko haraana hai," RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad told ANI.
We will try our best, won't let them quit: Raghuvansh Prasad, RJD on SP quits Janata Parivar pic.twitter.com/qHK7stryOf
— ANI (@ANI_news) September 3, 2015
In the 243-member Bihar assembly, five seats were allotted to SP, 100 seats each to RJD and JD(U), while the Congress will fight from 40 seats. The Samajwadi Party had initially demanded 47 seats; however, it had finally agreed to 12.
The BJP was quick at hitting out at the "grand alliance". "The act of Samajwadi Party shows how desperate and over ambitious the parties were in the alliance. All of them had come together just for the sake of their personal benefits," Senior Bihar BJP legislator Arun Sinha told IANS.
Last year, the Janata Parivar was formed out of a grand alliance of the JD(U), JD(S), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), Samajwadi Party and the Samajwadi Janata Party to counter the BJP force in the upcoming assembly polls.
However, differences started emerging among the alliance partners over seat-sharing ahead of the Bihar assembly polls.
