Ajit’s retort to grand alliance talk: Will Maya listen to anyone?
LUCKNOW: Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) national president Ajit Singh has categorically denied media reports about him negotiating with the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) for a Bihar-like grand alliance in UP for the 2017 assembly election.
However, he has not ruled out the possibility of the RLD and the Janata Dal United (JDU) reaching an understanding for a pre-poll alliance in UP.
“As of today, there is no truth in reports about the RLD-Congress BSP alliance emerging in UP,” he declared while talking to HT on the phone from Faizabad where he was addressing a rally in support of RLD candidate Munna Singh Chauhan for the Bikapur by-poll.
When asked if Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar was negotiating a RLD-Congress-BSP alliance, Singh retorted: “Will Mayawati listen to anyone?” He said it was still too early to talk about the possibility of any such alliance as the assembly polls were a year away. But he admitted to his being in touch with Nitish Kumar. “We can have some poll understanding with Kumar’s JD(U) for the UP assembly polls,” he stated.
On the saffron brigade’s renewed attempts to revive the Ayodhya temple movement, the former union minister said the Ram temple was dead as an issue.
Party sources said the RLD saw no possibility of an alliance with the SP or the BJP. Nitish Kumar, according to them, was certainly keen on a Bihar-like alliance comprising the Congress-BSP-RLD and the JD(U) but Mayawati, they pointed out, was not keen. “Since Mayawati will surely like to fight on most of the seats in western UP, the region that is supposed to be the RLD’s stronghold, any poll understanding with the BSP is unlikely,” sources said, “But there is every possibility of the Congress coming on board, sooner or later,” sources stressed.
They pointed out that the JD(U) might not have much political base in UP but Nitish Kumar’s image of a secular and honest leader might help the RLD woo the Muslim voters who have largely kept a distance from the RLD since the Muzaffarnagar riots of August-September 2013.