The Bihar ruling party Janata Dal-United announced on Wednesday that it will not contest the assembly poll in Uttar Pradesh, neither would support any other political party there.
“To protect the constituency for secular forces we’ve taken the decision not to contest assembly election in UP,” declared party general secretary and senior leader K.C. Tyagi.
Mr. Tyagi along with other party leaders RCP Singh, Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lallan Singh and others were addressing journalists at party headquarter in Patna.
“Unfortunately there was no Bihar like broad political coalition emerged in UP… so we decided to stay away from the UP poll to combat communal forces there”, Mr. Tyagi added.
“We’ll pray from here in Patna that the secular forces would win the poll there”, JD(U) leader and state Water Resource Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh said.
When asked would JD(U) president and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar go to UP for campaign, if Akhilesh Yadav sends him an invitation, Mr. Singh emphatically, said “No, Nitish Kumar will not go there”.
Party sources, however, told The Hindu , that the decision not to contest the UP poll was taken at the party’s core committee meeting held at chief minister Nitish Kumar’s official residence, 1, Anne Marg late on Monday night.
Earlier, JD(U) and its leaders have been touring extensively to the eastern part of UP to explore ground to contest the assembly poll.
The party president and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar had addressed about six meetings in these areas exploring opportunities for the party to contest the poll.
“We feel sorry for our party workers who worked hard for those meetings and exploring grounds for JD(U) to contest the poll,” said K.C. Tyagi.
Earlier, the JD(U) leaders were hopeful that it will forge poll alliance with parties like Rashtriya Lok Dal and Akhilesh Yadav led Samajwadi Party.
But, after a truce reached between the Samajwadi Party family and Congress Party on seat agreement and no option left for them, JD(U) leaders finally, sources said, decided to stay away from the UP poll.
However, the ruling alliance party of JD(U) in Bihar, Rashtriya Janata Dal had announced since beginning that it will support the Samajwadi Party in UP poll.
“I and my younger son Tejaswi Yadav will go to UP to campaign for Samajwadi Party candidates”, declared Lalu Prasad Yadav.
Party chief Lalu Prasad Yadav who has family relations too with the family of Mulayam Singh Yadav, recently had tweeted that he worked hard to end the family crisis in Samajwadi Party and also to reach its electoral tie with the Congress Party.
“I was in touch with Samajwadi Party and the Congress leadership to have an electoral tie…I’m happy that it has been finalized,” said Mr Prasad.
