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Janata Dal leaders resent emerging electoral tie-up with Samata Party

The slow drift of some Janata Dal leaders towards the Samata Party for an electoral tie-up has triggered off a fresh bout of differences within the party, with its vice-president Maulana Obaidullah Khan Azmi raising the banner of opposition against the ''impending'' truck between two parties for the next assembly election in Bihar.

Demanding an emergency session of the party's national executive meeting, Azmi and two others, Chhatra Janata Dal president Kunwar Danishi Ali and minorities committee chairman Rahat Mohammed Chaudhary, took strong exception to Bihar JD president Ramjeevan Singh's reported statement about a tie-up between the two parties in the eventuality of the Rabri Devi government's dismissal by the Centre.

Irked by the emerging scenario, these leaders apprehend that the emerging alliance would destroy the secular image of the party "for which we will suffer not only in Bihar but others parts of the country too". "The party's electoral alliance is a policy matter, so it should be discussed at the national executive, and individual leaders should not be at liberty to take such serious decisions individually as per their selfish ends," they said.

They said only the national executive could discuss the issue of poll tie-up within the framework of the Dal's policy.

One of the three leaders who issued a joint statement said they would form a third front within the Janata Dal which will wage a real struggle against communal forces and corruption. Apart from the already existing anti-Laloo and pro-Laloo factions, the third force within the party will fight to build up the Dal as a true secular force, he said.

The JD and Samata Party had decided to forge an electoral alliance in Bihar to stop the division of anti-Laloo votes during the assembly poll and fight unitedly the misrule of the Rabri Devi government.

The state chiefs of the two parties -- Ramjeevan Singh (JD) and Raghunath Jha (SP) -- had also decided to formalise their strategy during the next meeting to be held next week which their national leaders would be attending too.

The latest round of differences come on the heels of the party's former president S R Bommai's remarks in a press conference that the Dal was against use of the Article 356 and Ram Vilas Paswan's view that the Article be used immediately to sack the Bihar government was not the party's stand.

Bommai said the JD leaders would elicit views on the issue during the Dal's political affairs committee meeting in Patna on September 8.

UNI

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