Regrouped Janata Parivar parties to stage protests against BJP govt

Sources said that while the grand merger of the former constituents could take time, the beginning would be made with the merger of Lalu Prasad’s?RJD and Nitish Kumar’s JD-U, the process for which will kick-start soon after the Monday moorings.

“Elections are scheduled in Bihar next year and the urgency to put up a united fight against a resurgent BJP is more there than in Uttar Pradesh or Karnataka, where SP and Janata Dal (Secular) may not be in a hurry,” said a senior JD-U leader who declined to be identified. Assembly election will be held in UP in 2017.

Since former Bihar chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Presidents of JD-U and RJD Sharad Yadav and Lalu Prasad will be here on Monday, serious talks regarding the merger of the two parties to signal the grand alliance will gain urgency, the leader said.

After facing a complete rout at the hands of the BJP-led alliance in Lok Sabha elections in Bihar, JDU-RJD and Congress contested the Assembly bye-elections held a few months back recovering lost ground to a large extent.

JD(U) president Sharad Yadav, a prime mover behind the unity moves, said on Saturday that the December 22 ‘Mahadharna’ in New Delhi would be the “first solid step” for merger but no timeline could be fixed for it.

The programme being organised to “expose the BJP would also be the “first solid step” towards the merger of six parties.

The move under wraps for months was made public last month where SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav hosted a lunch for leaders of five political parties ? Janata Dal (United), Janata Dal (Secular), Indian National Lok Dal, SJP and Rashtriya Janata Dal ? at his residence in New Delhi, which was attended by?Sharad Yadav and Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad, JD(S) leader H.D Deve Gowda, INLD’s Dushyant Chautala and SJP’s Kamal Morarka.