Samajwadi Party's Ram Gopal Yadav, Shivpal Yadav fight over alliance with Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal

LUCKNOW: The first family of Samajwadi Party is divided over sealing a pre-poll alliance with Jat strongman Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal, hobbling Singh’s rehabilitation in the Rajya Sabha. Singh’s reluctance for a merger with the SP and the Yadav family’s doubts over his long term commitment to the alliance seems to have put a spanner in the works of the SP-RLD deal.
The division among SP brass was evident in the remarks made by two key functionaries.SP general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav, a cousin of SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, said on Monday “In one’s life credibility is most important. If someone loses his credibility he is no longer deemed important. Entering an alliance with such a person is not advisable for any political party”.
Yadav is said to have reservations over Singh’s shifting loyalties over the years and unsure the proposed alliance would hold through to the 2017 assembly polls. While one section of the SP led by Ram Gopal Yadav has sought a merger of RLD with SP, Ajit Singh is said to be against the idea and instead preparing to negotiate for more than three dozen seats to contest the polls. However, the architect of the proposed deal, Mulayam’s younger brother and senior leader Shivpal Yadav, remains convinced that an allaince will strengthen their position in polls.
“We want all followers of Gandhi, Lohia and Chaudhary Charan Singh to unite to defeat the BJP. We should be together,” Shivapal Yadav said. Ajit Singh is the son of former PM Chaudhary Charan Singh and his father’s legacy among farmers and Jats has helped him forge a political identity over the decades but is now struggling for rehabilitation ever since his party was routed in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
Both Singh and his son Jayant Chaudhary lost the Lok Sabha polls.