All secular forces should contest UP election together: Lalu Prasad Yadav

PATNA: RJD chief Lalu Prasad today said all "secular parties" should come together to fight the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, slated to be held next year, and he would "try to convince" Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav for this.

"I will try to convince Mulayam Singh Yadav, who is my relative, that all secular parties should fight the upcoming Uttar Pradesh election together to defeat to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party," he said.

Addressing a Eid milan function of Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind, Prasad said secular parties should come together to check "fundamentalist forces led by RSS and other right wing organisations".

The RJD chief claimed that during UP elections he would reveal why Modi visited a mosque in Dubai recently and alleged that "RSS wants to hoist the saffron flag in place of the Tricolour".

Expressing "anxiety" over "provocative statements made by some ruling party leaders", Jamait-Ulma-e-Hind president Sayeed Arshad Madni said, "This sounds an alarm bell over the unity and secular fabric of the country."

He also lauded Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar for coming together to ensure victory of "secular forces" in Bihar polls and said the same thing should happen in Uttar Pradesh too.