LUCKNOW/NEW DELHI: The nascent anti-BJP Grand Alliance today suffered a blow ahead of the Bihar assembly polls with Samajwadi Party storming out of it, saying it felt “humiliated” at being allotted a paltry five seats and deciding to contest the elections on its own.
“In Bihar the party will contest separately. The bigger parties in the alliance did not consult us while declaring seats due to which the SP felt humiliated. This is not the ‘gathbandhan dharma’,” SP general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav told reporters in Lucknow.
The decision to walk out of the coalition was taken at a meeting of SP parliamentary board in the presence of party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, who had brokered peace between Nitish Kumar and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad and succeeded in persuading the latter to accept the Bihar Chief Minister as the secular alliance’s chief ministerial candidate.
The development, coming weeks ahead of the high-stakes electoral may split the secular votes being eyed by the JD(U)-RJD-Congress combine.
However, president Sharad Yadav put up a brave face, claiming differences with Samajwadi Party will be sorted out and the alliance will remain intact. (AGENCIES)
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