Uttar Pradesh: RLD alleges BJP’s role in breaking alliance

In a major boost to the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Rashtriya Lok Dal on Friday declared that it would contest the Uttar Pradesh assembly election on its own and put up candidates in as many seats as possible.

RLD General Secretary Trilok Tyagi told National Herald in Delhi, “We are talking to smaller parties like JD(U), JD(S), NCP and others and ideally we would like to field candidates in all the 403 constituencies in Uttar Pradesh.”

Tyagi alleged that the Samajwadi Party had called off the alliance under pressure from BJP. Denying reports that RLD was only talking to the Congress, he claimed that Akhilesh Yadav, the UP chief minister and SP national president, had a telephonic talk with Jayant Chaudhary earlier this week and discussed the possibility of contesting together.

He also confided that Shivpal Yadav, brother of Mulayam Singh Yadav, had himself called on RLD chief Ajit Singh. Referring to Mulayam Singh Yadav’s invitation to RLD to participate in the silver jubilee celebrations of the Samajwadi Party, Tyagi claimed that RLD was in touch with SP all along.

“We did not have any formal talk with Congress,” he claimed and said, “Why would we talk to the Congress, which has no stake in either western UP or UP?”

RLD chief Ajit Singh, he maintained, had written to all like-minded parties for an alliance, specially to those who are former socialists and swear by Lohia and Charan Singh to come together.

But he admitted that BJP had been exerting pressure to ensure that an anti-BJP alliance does not take off. He also claimed that Khap panchayats of Jats, Tyagis and Prajapatis have come out in support of RLD.