The leaders of Janata Parivaar have quietly dropped the idea of forming of a Samajwadi Janata Dal by bringing together five regional parties of the country. The proposal actively mooted by Nitish Kumar, when he had stepped down as chief minister of Bihar has now lost its steam because Kumar has managed to return to the helm of affairs in Bihar. His party cadre are not happy about merging with the Rashtriya Janata Dal of their long time political opponent Lalu Prasad. Nitish Kumar realises by opting for the merger of the six parties, he would lose political control, especially as the Bihar assembly elections are just eight months away.
The plan announced last winter after a meeting of the heads of the regional parties which share a common origin - Samajwadi Party led by Mulayam Singh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh, RJD of Lalu Prasad, Janata Dal(United) headed by Sharad Yadav and Nitish Kumar(both from Bihar), Janata Dal(Secular) headed by former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda in Karnataka and Kerala; and Indian National Lok Dal headed by Om Prakash Chautala in Haryana.
The idea was to form the nucleus of a third front which will vigorously take on the resurgent NDA led by BJP, and the Congress which had been devastated in the Lok Sabha elections. Kumar had persuaded the leaders that individually their numbers were insignifcant in parliament but together they could have a critical mass in the next lok sabha elections. He thought that the merged party would attract other fragments of the Janata Dal like Biju Janata Dal in Odisha, Rashtriya Lok Dal in Uttar Pradesh, and also go for seat adjustments with regional parties,.
Since Mulayam Singh Yadav controlled the largest state of Uttar Pradesh by being in power, he was asked to head the merged party. The plan was that Mulayam would give autonomy to the state units in selection of candidates and conducting campaign, while he would enjoy total control over Uttar Pradesh. They were supposed to work towards the Janata Dal's vote banks of backward castes, dalits and minorities in their strongholds.
But within weeks Nitish found that his cadres who had worked with BJP for 16 years before the split between BJP and Janata Dal(united) were not willing to cede control to Lalu Prasad's men even in one district. Nitish also realised that Mulayam Singh Yadav may have his own gameplans as a national president, especially if he had the power to allot symbols. the election commission rules give vast powers to the president of a party in allotment of party symbol. Deve Gowda who had not been very enthusiastic about the whole enterprise as none of the other parties have a presence in Karnataka, too dragged his feet. he was worried his family's control over the party would get diluted.
Mulayam's own advisers too felt that he had built the Samajwadi Party from the scratch and it would be foolish to take on additional load, when he would not have political control over leaders like Nitish, Lalu Prasad or Deve Gowda. Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik, who has won four elections on the trot with his Biju Janata Dal, conveyed he would not be interested in the new party at any time.
Meanwhile Nitish realised that he had to take control of the Bihar government and enacted a political coup to displace his designated successor Jitan Ram Manjhi. The dream of reunity will remain just a dream.
Tailpiece: The influential Vivekananda International Foundation, which is considered close to the Narendra Modi government, is setting up a China desk to do research on India's relations with its big northern neighbour. But the foundation finds there are not enough Indian scholars who are thorough with the Chinese langauge, as very few Indians study the Chinese language.
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