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Uttar Pradesh : Jan Morcha rally targets Mulayam |
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The splinter groups of the old Janata Dal made a tentative effort to come together at a big rally organised by the recently revived Jan Morcha in Lucknow on May 30. The rally was attended by Railway Minister and RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, former Prime Minister V.P. Singh, Steel Minister and Lok Janshakti Party chief, Ramvilas Paswan and Raj Babbar who had recently been suspended from Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party.
Observers say that after the Tuesday rally, Mulayam Singh must be a worried man as the VP-Lalu-Paswan brigade - with the help of CPI’s A.B. Bardhan and RSP’s Ambani Roy - read out a chargesheet against him and urged people to dislodge his govern¬ment. Also lending their voice were former Prime Minister Chandrashekhar (who sent a message), Justice Party leader Udit Raj and other leaders of smaller parties.
The CPI(M) was conspicuous by its absence, fueling specula¬tion that general secretary Prakash Karat may have decided to give company to Mulayam to ensure the latter does not go for a tacit tie up with the BJP in desperation. After all, there have been charges of SP leader sharing a comfort level with the saf¬fronites and there is the JD (S) example in Karnataka for all to see.
Singh focused on the problems of farmers and attacked the Amar Singh-led Development Council, which “grabbed” the land of the poor to give to “capitalists.” But the tone and tenor of the attack on Mulayam was set by Lalu, who does not seem to have forgotten the damage the SP did to him in the Bihar polls. He dubbed Mulayam a “banyan tree” under which nothing grows, and accused him of hobnobbing with the BJP-NDA.
The regrouping of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s rivals in Uttar Pradesh has brought cheers to Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati. As Mulayam Singh fights the group of four - V.P. Singh, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Ram Bilas Paswan and Raj Babbar - a beaming Mayawati finds her battle half won. With the Congress and the BJP too frail to bounce back before the 2007 elections, Mayawati knows that her fight in four cornered contests, would be a direct one with Mulayam. But the coming together of Mu¬layam’s detractors has made her task easy. They would be able to cut into the Samajwadi Party’s Muslim-Yadav-Rajput (MVR) vote¬bank.
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