Rashtriya Janata Dal chief and former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad expressed happiness on Saturday at the Samajwadi Party’s decision to revoke the expulsion of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.
He had spoken to the party supremo Mulayam Singh and Mr. Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday morning, urging them to patch up and not contest the Assembly elections separately.
“I am very happy that the dispute has been settled after a meeting between Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav,” Mr. Prasad told reporters.
“It is my duty, being a relative. As a politician too, I feel rivals should not gain from the infighting.”
The BJP, on the other hand, said the reconciliation would not help bring the party back to power in the State. “There can be a comeback for the Chief Minister to his party which had expelled him. But not to power, as his government’s report card is full of failures,” said BJP National Secretary Shrikant Sharma. “People have made up their minds to get rid of him and the SP. His government only encouraged corruption and crime, and did nothing for the common man.”
Mr. Sharma said people would remember Mr. Yadav’s term for such incidents as the Jawahar Bagh violence in Mathura in which close to 30 people died and the Bulandshahr gang rape, besides the SP governments’ failures on health, education and infrastructure development fronts. He claimed that there was a “tsunami” in favour of the BJP in India’s most populous state.
The Congress, meanwhile, chose not to comment on the SP crisis. “We don’t comment on the internal affairs of other parties. There had been a quarrel yesterday, and today there was a patch up. It is a good thing. The family is together which is a good thing,” Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said. The party said it was ready to contest all the Assembly seats in the State. “We are preparing for the polls.”
The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) that claims to have a substantial following in the western part of the State preferred to “wait and watch”, and not take a formal stand on the evolving situation in Lucknow. RLD chief Ajit Singh refused to say anything on record. A senior leader of the party told The Hindu that the political situation in the State was “still too volatile to say anything with certainty”.
(With inputs from Mohammad Ali)
