Wednesday 15 / January / 2025
New Delhi: Amid the raging feud in Samajwadi Party (SP), its senior leader Shivpal Yadav reached Delhi on Wednesday evening to invite "like-minded" socialists for the party's 25th anniversary celebrations on November 5, a move seen as an attempt to stitch an alliance for the 2017 Assembly polls in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
Sources close to Shivpal said he called up Janata Dal(United) leaders Nitish Kumar, Sharad Yadav and Rashtriya Lok Dal supremo Ajit Singh after reaching Delhi to invite them for the function as part of a bid to showcase an alliance on the occasion.
A weakened SP is now looking for an alliance to take on the BJP and the Bahujan Samaj Party in the polls due early next year. Carrying an invitation from SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, Shivpal met JD(U) leader K.C. Tyagi and invited his party leaders for the November 5 event in Lucknow. When asked whether he would be inviting Rashtriya Janata Dal and RLD leaders also for the celebrations, Yadav said, "As of now, I am here to invite KC Tyagi." Asked whether he would be inviting the Congress too, he said "only socialists" were being invited.
Sources in JD(U) and SP said the idea behind the invite was to stitch an alliance in Uttar Pradesh ahead of next year's Assembly polls on the lines of Bihar. An earlier attempt to stitch an alliance of like-minded parties had failed after the SP had backed out.
Shivpal was involved in roping in the various constituents of the new formation till Mulayam himself decided to walk out of the grand alliance months before the Bihar polls.
"I had tried to form an alliance earlier too, but (expelled party leader) Ram Gopal Yadav did not allow it to happen fearing CBI," Shivpal told reporters at the airport here.
Asked whether he would attend the 'rath yatra' (chariot journey) which Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav plans from November 3, he said though he was no more under the chief minister (after being sacked from the Cabinet), he would certainly attend if invited. Responding to a poser, he said Akhilesh should respect his father Mulayam like a disciplined son.
