PATNA: After months of preparations to contest the upcoming Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh either in alliance with Samajwadi Party or separately, Bihar’s main ruling party JD(U) of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday said it would stay off the polls there.
JD(U) national general secretary KC Tyagi expressed disappointment over the way SP and Congress formed an alliance and seat-sharing deal, and said JD(U) took the decision not to contest in UP at all in order to ensure that secular votes do not get disintegrated in India’s most populous state.
“They (SP and Congress) failed miserably to form a Bihar-like grand alliance that was necessary to keep communal forces out of power. Now, we do not want to be a splinter group in the polls in UP. We also do not want to cause any more split in the secular votes there,” said Tyagi.
JD(U) sources said the decision not to contest the Assembly polls in UP was taken at a meeting held at Nitish Kumar’s residence on Tuesday evening. “We saw no real gain for us in UP in the present conditions. Besides, in the event of SP-Congress losing the polls to BJP there, we do not want to be blamed as ‘vote-katwa’ (splitter of votes),” said a leader close to Kumar.
“We have our best wishes for the secular, progressive alliance in UP,” said Tyagi, adding that the recent statement of RSS leader Manmohan Vaidya advocating a review of the reservation policy could lead to a “Bihar-like rout of BJP if used properly”.
While it was expected that the Bihar CM would campaign for the SP-Congress alliance by addressing a few rallies, senior JD(U) leader and minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh said neither Kumar nor any other JD(U) leader would campaign in UP.
“When JD(U) was not considered for being part of an anti-BJP alliance, there is no question of going there,” said Singh.