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Bihar polls: Samajwadi Party unveils new front with NCP, others
Weeks after exiting the grand alliance led by chief minister Nitish Kumar, the Samajwadi Party (SP) on Thursday announced the formation of a new front with the NCP, NPP and SJD to contest the polls to the Bihar assembly.
Weeks after exiting the grand alliance led by chief minister Nitish Kumar, the Samajwadi Party (SP) on Thursday announced the formation of a new front with the NCP, NPP and SJD to contest the polls to the Bihar assembly.
SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav had walked out of Bihar’s ‘mahagathbandan’ comprising the Janata Dal-United and the Rashtriya Janata Dal earlier this month. The party said it had been insulted by the offer of only five seats, against its demand of 12, for the assembly polls.
Ram Gopal Yadav, national general secretary of the SP, unveiled the new front – which includes the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), National People’s Party (NPP) and Samajwadi Janata Dal-Democratic (SJD) – at a news conference in Lucknow.
“We will meet in Patna tomorrow and decide seat-sharing for the first phase of the elections,” he said.
The Samajwadi Party plans to field candidates from the “extremely backward classes” (EBCs) for the polls to the 243-member assembly to be held in five phases from October 12. It is eyeing EBCs such as the Prajapati, Lohar, Badhai, Mallah, Dhobi and Chaurasia for support.
The SP recently forged an alliance with the NCP, which too had walked out of the secular alliance led by Nitish Kumar over the distribution of seats.
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