Modi effect? Regional political parties like SP, RJD, JD(U) & others to unite to form 'Samajwadi Janata Dal'

NEW DELHI: Five regional parties which were once part of the ruling Janata Dal of 1990 will resolve to merge and form a single party, tentatively called the Samajwadi Janata Dal, at a meeting in New Delhi on Thursday. The five parties are Mulayam Singh’s SP, Lalu Prasad’s RJD, Om Prakash Chautala’s INLD, Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) and Deve Gowda’s JD(S).

Leaders of these parties will meet in New Delhi on Thursday, where they will pass a resolution announcing their resolve to merge into a single political entity and set a time-table to complete the formalities at the earliest. Mulayam is likely to be the leader of the new party, with Sharad, Nitish, Abhay Chautala and Gowda likely to be given important responsibilities.

Ajit Singh’s RLD, however, is expected to stay out of the latest experiment due to his unresolved differences with Chautala’s party over the leadership of Jat politics. BJD, another splinter party of the Janata Parivar will also not be part of this latest unity experiment of the Socialists.

Following BJP’s victory in the respective strongholds of these parties, they had recently decided work as a group against BJP. After the formation of the new party, the leaders are expected to announce an agitation against the Modi government and will call upon for the larger unity of all like-minded opposition parties, including the Congress, Trinamool and Left parties. The merged party will be the second largest opposition bloc after Congress in the Rajya Sabha.