SP quits Janata Parivar, to contest Bihar polls alone

Lucknow, September 3

The Samajwadi Party on Thursday walked out of the Janata Parivar and decided to contest the Bihar elections on its own, a leader said here.

SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav said: "We will fight the (Bihar) election independently and with our full might." He said that they neither met BJP chief Amit Shah nor Prime Minister Narendra Modi with regard to their decision to leave the Janata Parivar.

To a query, Yadav said: "We will definitely meet the Prime Minister whenever there is an administrative need or for (financial assistance) for the state."

Reacting to the development, senior Bihar BJP legislator Arun Sinha told IANS: "The act of the 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."  The ruling JD-U has "cheated everyone", Sinha said after the SP pulled out of the Janata Parivar.

Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United, and Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal, besides others, came together to contest the Bihar assembly elections as Janata Parivar, a sort of anti-Modi bloc.

Yadav said that at the time of Janata Parivar's formation, "I had said that I will not sign the party's death warrant".

He said that the party's Bihar unit will prepare a list of candidates for the upcoming elections.

The Janata Parivar was keen to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party that has done well in a string of state polls.

Besides, the Samajwadi Party, the other Janata Parivar constituents are Janata Dal-United, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Janata Dal (Secular), the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and Samajwadi Janata Party (Chandra Shekhar). —IANS