RJD hit by Defections, Mulayam–Lalu-Paswan Prepare to Annouce Fresh Alliance
The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) on Friday are expected to announce an alliance between the three UPA splinters, after Mulayam Singh, Lalu Prasad and Ram Vilas Paswan meet in Lucknow.
Announcing the meeting on March 29, SP General Secretary Amar Singh had said: “The RJD, the LJP and the SP will sit together in Lucknow to discuss and announce the secular alliance.”
“We will not clash with each other in the two states (UP and Bihar) having 120 Lok Sabha seats (80 seats in UP, 40 seats in Bihar),” he said.
Bihar goes to polls in four phases on April 16, 23 and 30 and May 7 while polling in Uttar Pradesh rakes place across the five phases of the elections on April 16, 23, 30, May 7 and May 13.
Meanwhile, the RJD suffered a huge setback in Bihar on Friday as two party parliamentarians Vijay Krishna and Ganesh Prasad Yadav joned the ruling Janata Dal-United (JD-U) in Bihar on Friday.
Krishna is MP from the Barh Lok Sabha segment while Yadav represents the Jehanabad, were unhappy after they were denied the ticket to contest the Lok Sabha elections.
Krishna had defeated Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of JD(U) in 2004 elections.
The defections come soon after RJD MPs Sadhu Yadav (Gopalganj) and Giridhari Yadav (Banka) had joined the Congress.
