JD (U) to go with Apna Dal instead of BJP in UP assembly polls

New Delhi, June 19 (UNI) Distancing itself from the BJP, Janata Dal (United) President Sharad Yadav today said the party would contest the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls next year in alliance with Apna Dal and give a tough fight to the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party which have become ''private limited parties''.

Mr Yadav said this while announcing the list of office-bearers and national executive members of the party which included Mr Ram Jiwan Singh as the Vice President and Mr K C Tyagi as the Secretary General and Dr Shambhu Srivastawa, M P Nanda Gowda, Arun Kumar Srivastava, Javed Raza and Shiv Kumar as the General Secretaries.

The party has decided to go with the Apna Dal of the Sone Lal Patel and not with the BJP due to some 'special reasons', he said.

This statement of the JD (U) President signifies a clear distancing of the JD (U) from its NDA ally, the BJP, with which it had contested the last assembly elections.

However, Mr Yadav denied that the two parties are drifting apart and said that they were together on the national level as NDA allies due to some 'compulsions' but in various states like Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu the parties have gone separately.

''Besides, we are two separate parties and have ideological differences also. They support liberalisation and privatisation of Airports Authority of India while the JD(U) was against the selling of the profit making undertaking,'' he pointed out.

Mr Yadav said the endeavour of the JD(U) in Uttar Pradesh would be to give a tough fight to the SP and BSP as both have become 'private limited parties', the former of a family and the latter of a woman.

Asked about the possibility of the JD(U) joining the third front floated by the SP, TDP and CPI(M), Mr Yadav said this was the ''self preservation front for Mulayam Singh and Chandrababu Naidu''.

He said only NDA and UPA exists at present and at the time Lok Sabha elections were held there was no possibility of a viable third front formation at the national level.

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