After Pari-‘WAR’ SP pursue a ‘Grand Alliance’ for UP election

TIL Desk/National/NEW DELHI/ Shivpal Yadav is in Delhi to invite leaders of several other parties for the grand 25th birthday celebrations of the Samajwadi Party in Lucknow next week, among them prominent Uttar Pradesh leader Ajit Singh and Sharad Yadav of the Janata Dal United.

The Delhi visit of the Samajwadi Party’s UP chief comes a day after he invited “all followers of Lohia, Chaudhary Charan Singh and Gandhi to come together and fight communal forces,” and he is expected to pursue putting together for the UP elections, a “Grand Alliance” on the lines of the one that fought and won the Bihar elections under Nitish Kumar’s stewardship last year.

Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav had pulled out of the Bihar alliance in what is widely seen as a political misstep, and his younger brother Shivpal has blamed Ram Gopal Yadav, their cousin, who was recently sacked from the party.

Shivpal Yadav said yesterday that he had brought parties together for that alliance in Bihar, but Ram Gopal Yadav – people no more in the party, he said – scuttled the plans. Eventually, Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal United, Lalu Yadav of the RJD and the Congress contested as partners, scoring a big win in Bihar.