By Faisal Fareed, TwoCircles.net
Attempts to bring together non BJP parties may have failed in the past in Uttar Pradesh, but old socialists are not losing hope of stitching up grand alliance ahead of UP assembly polls.
This time, the effort is being made against the backdrop of former Chaudhary Charan Singh, who is also the political Guru of Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav.
For this, two dates-December 22 and 23-will be important, when a book on the life of Chaudhary Charan Singh will be released.
Interestingly, the book will be released by Vice President Hamid Ansari on December 22 in New Delhi but invitation has been extended to all parties including Congress. Most of the leader have consented to attend the meeting. The major focus will be on RLD and SP.
JD (U) leader Sharad Yadav has also extended lunch invitation to the leaders like Mulayam Singh Yadav, Sharad Pawar, HD Deve Gowda, Ghulam Nabi Azad etc.
On December 22, the RLD will organise a rally in Muzaffarnagar where NCP leader Sharad Pawar and Deve Gowda are likely to attend. This will give a broader picture on the infant alliance of RLD and JD (U). After that, the meetings of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar are also planned.
The target is to bring all of them together in the name of Chaudhary Charan Singh and form a Bihar like grand alliance of non BJP parties.
Earlier, move was taken to forge alliance in November during the silver jubilee celebrations of SP in Lucknow. All leaders hailed Mulayam as their leader but he scuttled the move on grounds that he is ready for merger and not for alliance. Since then Mulayam’s words have been taken adversely by RLD chief Ajit Singh who went ahead and formed alliance with JD (U).
Mulayam has earlier backtracked on similar position when he walked away from Bihar’s grand alliance.
Now everything is being done in a fresh manner. The parties understand that it is necessary to have SP in their fold which is in power in UP. On the other hand, CM Akhilesh Yadav wants an alliance with Congress.
The smaller outfits who have no stake in UP understand that any alliance will benefit them as they will get handful of seats and it will fulfill the desire of their local leaders to contest polls. Further, their national importance will remain intact after contesting the polls.