BJP phobia can’t sustain Janata Parivar: BJD

NEW DELHI: The Biju Janata Dal, electorally the most successful faction of the Janata family, is least impressed by the imminent merger of SP, RJD, JD(U), JD(S), INLD and SJP. Navin Patnaik’s party, which has emerged victorious in all Lok Sabha and assembly polls in Odisha since 2000 asserts, “the latest BJP phobia of other Janata parivar parties alone” cannot be a lasting factor to sustain the Janata merger”. BJD says it is not part of the merger efforts because it thinks “there are no definite ideological or programmatic factors.”

“The latest reason for the planned merger is clearly BJP phobia parties such as RJD, SP, JD(U) and others are suffering from, unlike BJD led by Navinbabu, as they have failed to defeat BJP. BJD sees no definite ideological and programmatic factors involved in this merger effort,” BJD parliamentary party chief Bhartruhari Mahtab told ET.

Mahtab said there was a lesson to be learnt why such mergers failed. “The merger of parties based on their combined phobia can’t be a solution.

Formation of the Janata Party was essentially driven by Indira phobia and not due to any shared ideological and programmatic convictions. That is why Janata Party crumbled soon. Even BJP and Left backed National Front government was driven by the phobia for Rajiv Gandhi-led Congress. Similarly, Congress/Leftbacked United Front experiment was fuelled by BJP phobia and met the same fate,” Mahtab said.

RJD, JD(U), SP, off shoots of Lohia’s anti-Congress politics, is now moving closer to Congress as it has become weak in their respective states, where BJP is the new challenger, Mahtab said.