The reason cited for delay is quite untenable. He said:'There is a technical problem. The problem is that if a political party tells the Election Commission that they are going to merge and form a new party, then the original name and symbols of the party will be frozen. The Bihar elections are near and the merger cannot be done in a hurry'. Apparently Ram Gopal may appear to be right: the new party and its new symbol have to be popularised amongst the voters. The voters will be confused.

But this is half-truth. There is still six months to go for the assembly elections. Rural people of Bihar are not so naive not to understand and identify the election symbol. There are many stances when a new party had to go to the elections with a new symbol. AAP is the latest example. Ram Gopal’s observation; 'Voters will be confused, especially in Bihar” ought to be read in proper perspective. He also said: “the better option at this point of time is that both the parties come together, they share the seats and fight the election jointly. We will be signing the death warrant of our party if we do the merger in a hurry'.

If the Samajwadi Party leadership was so concerned of the future of the new party why should it not cleared the merger earlier? It should have provided enough time to Nitish and Lalu to maneaouver the things and popularize the party and its symbol.

Ram Gopal came up with this assertion only after the seat sharing process between the JD(U) and RJD turned contentious. A RJD source said: “We have agreed to Nitish Kumar as our CM nominee despite resentment from some quarters. Nitish is the most credible face and could be our USP against the NDA that may not declare its CM candidate. There has been also understanding on seat-sharing with RJD and JD(U) leaders tentatively agreeing to contest 100 seats each, leaving 43 for possible alliance partners Congress and CPI.”

The fact is the JD(U) is reluctant to concede 100 seats to the RJD. In the 2010 election, while the JD(U) had won 115 seats, the RJD had won nearly 27 seats. Obviously Nitish will; have to sacrifice not less than 20 seats to RJD. Moreover in the prevailing political situation Nitish had to concede to the requests of some other aspirants. It is indeed a tricky situation for Nitish. Under a seat sharing process both the parties can have friendly contest on some seats. Though the RJD has agreed to accept Nitish as the next chief minister, some of the senior RJD leaders close to Lalu are not too comfortable with this proposition.

Ram Gopal’s announcement brings the curtain down on the move of the unified command. Ironically only ten days back RJD and JD(U) had reached a final deal over seat-sharing and chief ministerial candidate for the Assembly elections in Bihar, paving the way for a formal announcement of the name, election symbol and flag of the new party after Janata Parivar merger. It was agreed that the party’s flag would have a green stripe in between two red stripes, with a bicycle at the centre. But the Sunday announcement has put the entire process in a quandary.

Meanwhile efforts are on to make Lalu Prasad the chairperson of the Campaign Committee having the final say in choice of seats for allies. If the party sources are to be relied some of the allies are not comfortable with this mechanism. In fact Lalu Prasad’s stake is much higher than Nitish Kumar. Lalu knows Nitish is the only credible choice. Nevertheless a section of the senior socialist leaders are skeptical of this development. They hold that if Mulayam, Lalu and Nitish fail to provide an alternative party to the BJP in Bihar, it would prove difficult for them to project the new party as the alternative in UP. The new party ought to have been launched. It would have given the opportunity to the leaders to test and understand the mood of the people. Since the combined parties would go to the polls under Nitish, he must be given the opportunity to cash his USP of Sushasan. For this Nitish needs a free hand.

These leaders in fact recall one of the observations of Lalu wherein he had said that he was non committal about the dates of the merger: About the party becoming a reality before the November Assembly polls in Bihar, Lalu had quipped “I can't give you a deadline.' It only strengthened the perception that the RJD chief was not keen on unification of the six parties even at this stage. (IPA Service)