The merger of all Janata Parivar parties will be announced in time to prepare for the Bihar Assembly elections and the six constituents have decided on the symbol and the flag of the proposed new party, its leaders said in Patna on Wednesday.
Janata Dal-United National General Secretary KC Tyagi said that they have zeroed in on two names, ‘Samajwadi Janata Dal’ and ‘Samajwadi Janata Party’, one of which will be chosen for the new party. “There are no hiccups in the merger now,” he said.
The six parties, which are in the process of uniting, are Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal-United, Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Samajwadi Party, Om Prakash Chautala’s Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), Janata Dal-Secular led by former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda and the Samajwadi Janata Party (SJP).
The merger is being touted as an effort to take on the BJP, which, barring Delhi, has notched strong performances in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir after storming to power at the Centre in May last year.
What is the name of the merged entity?
The Janata Parivar parties have decided to “adopt the Samajwadi Party (SP) symbol bicycle” as well as the red and green flag after their merger into one party, a top Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader, who did not wish to be named, told PTI. Sources said the decisions to adopt the symbol and the flag of the SP was taken considering its superior strength in Parliament and the Uttar Pradesh Assembly.
The Samajwadi Party has five seats in the Lok Sabha, 15 in the Rajya Sabha and 232 in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh Assembly. On the other hand, Lalu Prasad’s RJD has four Lok Sabha members and one in the Rajya Sabha, while the JD-U has two in the Lok Sabha and 12 in the Rajya Sabha.
Former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal-Secular has two seats in the Lok Sabha and one in the Rajya Sabha, while the Indian National Lok Dal has two members in the Lower House and one in the Upper House of Parliament. In totality, the new party will have 15 Lok Sabha MPs and 30 in the Upper House.
Big push ahead of Bihar elections
Asked about the seat-sharing deal between the JD-U and the RJD in the Bihar elections scheduled later this year, Tyagi said, “The Bihar polls are definitely our focus, but first let the new party be formed. We want to concentrate on Bihar with our full strength, which is the reason we want the merger to happen quickly.”
Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, who has been authorised to oversee and facilitate the merger, is currently in Lucknow. “He is expected to arrive in Delhi today or tomorrow to meet INLD leader Abhay Chautala and JD-S leader HD Deve Gowda, after which the merger will be announced,” Tyagi said.
