Intro: Afraid of Modi politics, leaders of Janata Parivar are realising their downfall as a result of which they’re forging a grand socialist alliance.
Lok Sabha polls provided an opportunity to the alienated socialists to once again sit together and constitute a United Socialist Janata Parivar. This time Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav took the initiative to forge the grand socialist alliance. After the meeting of leaders from six parties, attended by Janata Dal (Secular) chief HD Deve Gowda, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, Janata Dal (United) president Sharad Yadav, his party colleague Nitish Kumar, Indian National Lok Dal MP Dushyant Chautala and Samajwadi Janata Party chief Kamal Morarka, JD (U) leader KC Tyagi told media, “We discussed merger to emerge as an anti-BJP and anti-Congress force to fight the growing BJP.”
Samajwad V/S Mulayam Singh Dynasty
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These leaders agreed to forge a Samajwadi Janata Dal, which will be led by Mulayam Singh Yadav. It is expected that this party will take shape before Bihar Assembly elections, due next year. All opposition parties, including the Congress, are feeling a big threat from the rapidly growing BJP. According to a senior Congress leader, “Congress is facing its worst phase after Independence. We faced defeat in 1977, but we managed it because it was Janata Party (a conglomerate of leaders of different views), but this time it is a strong party based on principles’. Now JD (U), RJD, INLD and SP are also feeling a big threat to their existence. So it is the question of their survival and not any principle, which forced them to sit together. It was that compulsion which forced Lalu Yadav to join hands with it’s his arch rival Nitish Kumar before Assembly by-poll in Bihar. It is not for the first time when socialists have joined hands. Earlier it was against Congress, and now they are directing their guns against BJP.”
In 1977, they joined hands along with erstwhile Jan Sangh against the Congress. But within a short duration they were managed by the same Congress as it is claimed by a senior Congress leader. In 1988-89, they forged Janata Dal and formed a government under the leadership of VP Singh and in 1996 they formed a United Front government. But both the times Congress played its role, as a result none of these governments could complete their full term.
It is believed that Socialists cannot work together for long time and they part their ways on petty issues. There are more than a dozen political parties, which inherit socialist leaning. But this is a hard fact that all these parties claim to be democratic, secular and socialists, but most of them are based on caste and religious equations and even follow dynastic leadership.
BBC Hindi, analysing this grand socialist alliance, wrote, “Leaders of Janata Parivar are realising their downfall… they are afraid of Modi politics.’ In another analysis titled ‘Jaati ki talvar banagi Hindutva ki kaat’ (Sword of casteism to nullify Hindutva) BBC wrote that after Lok Sabha elections, in an off the record discussion a JD (U) leader said ‘now casteism has to be provoked’.
This working style of Socialist-Janata Parivar is very much against those principles, which were followed during the Independence movement. Today they’re playing caste politics to divide the society, while PM Narendra Modi is aiming for the welfare of all 125 crores Indians.
Dr Ravindra Agrawal (The writer is a senior journalist and can be contacted at agravindra@gmail.com)
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