By NNN-PTI,
Lucknow, India : Siding with BSP on the Indo-US nuclear deal may prove to be the bane for RLD chief Ajit Singh, who is now virtually isolated in the political arena in Uttar Pradesh with no major party showing interest to forge an alliance with his outfit.
The Rashtriya Lok Dal, which appeared to have struck a good deal by joining hands with the Uttar Pradesh state Chief Minister on the nuclear agreement with the United States ignoring Congress, now finds itself in a difficult position with the Mayawati-led party not not ready to leave any seat for it in the upcoming Lok Sabha (Lower House) polls.
Singh, whose party has three MPs, refused to support the UPA Government during the July 22 trust vote, saying the deal was against national interests.
The BSP, it was believed, had promised that it would allot eight seats to RLD during the 2009 General Elections but after she failed to topple the UPA dispensation, Mayawati announced that her party would contest all the 80 seats in the state.
With the Congress and its new ally Samajwadi Party already starting negotiations on seat-sharing, there appears to be little scope for RJD to be part of that alliance even though it had been with the SP during the last elections.
Though Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh has gone on record saying “we want all the secular parties to contest together”, no concrete offer has been made to the RLD so far.
Samajwadi Party sources say that if the Congress wanted the RLD to be part of the combine then it have to give seats to Ajit Singh’s party from its quota.