Nitish meets MSY, Sharad to accelerate merger process

PATNA: Former Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, who is actively involved in the mission for merger of five regional parties at the national level to fight the BJP, on Saturday held talks with Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav in New Delhi to push forward the merger agenda.
The leaderships of five Janata Parivar parties have agreed on the name of Mulayam to lead the new party.These parties are Samajwadi Party, RJD, JD (U), INLD and JD (S). Nitish and Mulayam are believed to have discussed the formalities of the merger. Mulayam has been authorized to prepare a draft to which all the stakeholders would express their agreement.
Nitish also met his JD (U)’s national president Sharad Yadav on Saturday and discussed the modalities of merger of JD (U) and RJD in Bihar ahead of the state assembly election in October 2015.
State JD (U) president Bashistha Narain Singh said the merger should be seen in the national context. “It will be a merger of the parties believing in the ideologies of Gandhi, Lohia and JP and which are committed to safeguarding the country from communal and divisive ideologies,” he said.
Though JD (U) and RJD politicians are not sure if the merger process would be formalized before the assembly election, they say they are committed to fighting against the BJP with unity. “Merger is a long and complicated process and it has to be settled at different levels. It is not an easy task since the two parties had been at loggerheads for almost two decades,” said a JD (U) MLA bracketed as a dissident.
The MLA, preferring anonymity, said there could be ‘sar phutawwal’ for each seat and each post. It is still not clear who will be the leader of the party most likely to be named as Samajwadi Janata Dal, taking the word Samajwadi from the Samajwadi Party and Janata Dal from JD (U), RJD, JD (S) and INLD.