Janata Parivar merger won't have impact on Bihar polls: BJP

Patna, Apr 15: With six parties from the erstwhile Janata Parivar set to merge on Wednesday, BJP mocked the proposed amalgamation, saying it would have "no impact" on the upcoming Bihar elections.

"Merger experiments have flopped in the past and will meet the same fate this time too...It's beyond comprehension as to how 3-4 swords would remain in one scabbard," senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi told reporters.

"All these parties are in truth one man show. RJD is a party of Lalu Prasad while Mulayam Singh Yadav is the sole leader of Samajwadi Party and Nitish Kumar is the dominant figure in JD(U). (As) these supremos do not tolerate anybody else in their parties how come they remain in peace with each other in one fold," Modi wondered while emerging out of the Legislative Council.

Recalling that such experiments had flopped earlier as well, Modi said, "Four parties had come together in 1977 but they withered away in less than one year. Again, in 1989, the coming together of parties did not last long."

The senior BJP leader discounted the possibility of the merger posing any threat to the party in Bihar polls scheduled later this year.

"Be it merger of grand alliance it would have no impact in Bihar. People have made up their minds for a change hence, joining of hands by Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad and others would have no effect in the state polls," he said.

Yesterday, BJP President Amit Shah made light of the Janata Parivar alliance with Lalu Prasad saying "zero plus zero remains a zero".

PTI