Akhilesh Yadav deputes Kiranmoy Nanda to visit Lalu in jail & Tejashwi in Patna

New Delhi: Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav has deputed the party’s vice-president Kiranmoy Nanda to meet RJD supremo Lalu Prasad in Ranchi jail and his son Tejashwi Yadav in Patna next week to send across a message of larger opposition unity against the BJP.

Nanda confirmed to ET that he would be travelling to Ranchi on Monday to meet Prasad in jail and later go to Patna to congratulate Tejashwi Yadav on the big wins in Bihar bypolls. “I will carry a larger message of opposition unity to Lalu ji and Tejashwi on the behalf of Akhilesh Yadav. We are like-minded parties and RJD has notched up good wins in Bihar like the SP in UP in the recent bypolls,” Nanda told ET. This is significant as the SP had not become a part of the erstwhile Mahagathbandan (grand alliance) of RJD, JDU and Congress in the 2015 assembly elections and had contested the polls separately, supposedly as it was not promised enough seats. Tejashwi Yadav and SP’s Ram Gopal Yadav were both present along with other opposition leaders at Sonia Gandhi’s dinner on Tuesday.

This adds to the talk of a broader anti-BJP alliance for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. SP in the recent past has been critical of BJP framing its political opponents in false cases. Former JDU president Sharad Yadav, who rebelled against Nitish Kumar for re-aligning forces with the BJP, has also been in touch with both Lalu Prasad and Akhilesh Yadav.


ET had reported on Friday how the idea of a SP-BSP alliance was in fact given by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Bannerjee to Akhilesh Yadav during a recent meeting after which SP opened talks with BSP