Shivpal seeks to cobble together secular front
RIFT Says brother Mulayam is on board to head the morcha of nonBJP leaders, which will deliver justice to farmers, downtrodden
Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Yadav will talk to senior non-BJP leaders to revive the secular front that he had started to construct before the Bihar assembly elections in 2015.
On Friday, Shivpal announced the formation of a Samajwadi Secular Morcha on the lines of a revolutionary front that his brother Mulayam Singh Yadav had floated after the split in Charan Singh’s Lok Dal. Mulayam had then headed Lok Dal (A), which had a limited base in UP. While Mulayam has not spoken on the impending split in the party that he floated in the early 1990s, Shivpal put all speculations to rest about his brother’s reluctance to head the front. “He is very much on board. Without his blessings, we would not have taken such a major step,” he said.
Shivpal, who had played a key role in the formation of Bihar’s Grand Alliance under Mulayam’s leadership, said a similar front at the national level would be constituted to take on communal forces and deliver justice to farmers and downtrodden.
Mulayam had withdrawn from the alliance of Congress, Janata Dal (United) and Rashtriya Janata Dal before Bihar assembly elections. Without naming the senior leaders with whom he is holding talks, Shivpal mentioned Gandhiwadi (Congress), Lohiawadi (Socialist leaders such as Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar) and followers of Charan Singh (Rashtriya Lok Dal of Choudhary Ajit Singh) as potential allies. He said the response to their decision to float a secular front was overwhelming and he was flooded with calls from all over India.
Shivpal said before the UP elections, he had initiated a dialogue to seal pre-poll alliance with Quami Ekta Dal and Rashtriya Lok Dal, but some in-house conspirators threw a spanner in the talks to benefit BJP. He added that the same people were now opposing him and Mulayam.