Samajwadi Party leaders fear merger would overshadow their identity

LUCKNOW: Though the merger process of Janata Parivar parties has gathered steam, it may still be a phased out affair, staggered over several months, which would first see the Bihar parties coming together to form a single entity and the other state parties joining at a later stage. Top sources say that with the Bihar assembly polls due in 8 months, the two main parties of that state, the Janta Dal-United of chief minister Nitish Kumar and Rashtriya Janta Dal of Lalu Prasad Yadav would first merge into a single entity. This could happen even before the next parliament session begins on April 20.

The other socialist parties, including the Samajwadi Party, could merge into a common entity at a later stage. This is largely due to several unresolved issues of merger. In Uttar Pradesh, the merger has caused a lot of anxiety among Samajwadi Party leaders and may see several twists and turns before the process take off. While the SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav at a close door meeting recently tried to assuage party office bearers about their concerns of loosing their poll symbol of ‘cycle’ by saying that he will try to ensure that the cycle symbol is not lost.