By raising the issue of Nitish Kumar’s alliance with the BJP the Samajwadi Pary supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav on Tuesday (Sep 8) hit the Bihar chief minister where it hurts him most.

Whatever his compulsion––CBI or something else––it can be now said with the experience of hindsight that the Bihar chief minister committed a political blunder when he floated the idea of merger of half a dozen parties of Janata Parivar under the leadership of Netaji. It was not Lalu Prasad, but Nitish Kumar who took the initiative and went even to knock at the door of Tihar Jail to meet the convicted former CM of Haryana and leader of the Indian National Lok Dal, Om Prakash Chautala.

All these regional satraps have their own limitations––political and otherwise. Therefore, pushing the clock back to the old days of 1989-90 or even 1977-79 was a suicidal move. But Nitish, out of power in those days of 2014 and early 2015, hurriedly suggested Mulayam Singh’s name to lead it. Those were the days when Lalu was more busy in getting his youngest daughter married to the grand nephew of Mulayam––Tej Pratap, who himself is an MP. Therefore, he never wanted to displease the would be ‘samdhi’.

But within three weeks of installation of Mulayam as the chief on April 15 party general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav said that the merger would be suicidal for Samajwadi Party. Incidentally, when Ram Gopal said so in May last the RJD and JD(U) had not cemented their alliance with the Congress, therefore, this excuse of Samajwadi Party does not cut much ice.

Apart from the stick of the CBI––which the BJP has used to even silenced the garrulous Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal––politically the situation in Uttar Pradesh is somewhat different than Bihar. The state is going to poll in 2017 with more than one chief minister ruling it. Akhilesh Singh had to take into confidence the entire Yadav extended family before taking any decision.

The Janata Parivar merger was not at all going to benefit Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh. In contrast the coming together of Janata Dal (United) and Rashtriya Janata Dal made the twosome a strong combination ready to take on the BJP-led NDA. Here the Congress has been totally marginalized and it soon fell in line and joined the grand alliance.

In Uttar Pradesh the Congress is very much in fray. In 2009 Lok Sabha poll it performed exceedingly well. Both Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are MPs from there and it is ‘karambhoomi’ for the family. The Grand Old Party still hopes to revive its fortune there.

At the same time the Samajwadi Party’s failure in UP was much more devastating than that of the non-NDA parties in Bihar in 2014. The NDA won 73 out of 80, when in Bihar 31 out of 40.

In UP there is no scope of Samajwadi Party and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party coming together. So in this precarious position Mulayam can not afford to be as aggressive against BJP as Nitish and Lalu in Bihar.

In his Tuesday statement the SP chief recalled the role he played in opposing the BJP––especially during the heydays of Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid movement. 

What he perhaps implied is that in present situation he can not afford to do the same because of obvious compulsions.

Dragging Samajwadi Party into the mega-alliance at this point of time was not at all going to yield any result whatsoever for the JD(U)-RJD-Congress alliance. The non-existent party was unnecessary giving importance in Bihar. The JD(U)-RJD-Congress should have simply gone into the Assembly election without having the confused idea about the revivial of Janata Parivar.

The creation of a new party of Janata Parivar will certainly alarm the Congress as it would cut into its secular votes. At the same time Nitish and Lalu are joining hands with it in Bihar. What type of politics are they playing?

After Manjhi’s installation and removal this is another political mistake Nitish had committed in recent past. He is well past 60 and still learning the rope.

He may be a better CM, but not so successful a politician. Mark it Mulayam chose to single him out and not Lalu.