Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav has been staying away from the campaigning in the Bihar Assembly poll, where the fight is between secular and ultra-secular parties.
“Mulayam Singhji could not address election meetings in the first two phase of the poll. Akhilesh Yadav (his son and MP) is taking care of the election campaigning,” a SP leader and the MP told this newspaper on Monday night.
The SP is fighting the election on its own at a time when RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and the LJP president Ram Vilas Paswan have come together against the Janata Dal (U) and the BJP combine.
Though the SP, RJD, LJP are working together in Parliament, but they are a divided force in Bihar. The SP has even fielded candidates against the RJD-LJP front.
The two national parties — Congress and BJP — are also not in a position to form a government on its own.
In New Delhi, the AICC leaders predicted that the Muslim-Yadav (MY) combination of Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav would break in this election, which has become a “do or die” battle for the RJD supremo.
According to them, the Bihar election would certainly have a bearing on the Uttar Pradesh Assembly poll to be held in 2012. But before that a realignment process of political parties would begin, they felt.
The SP, BSP, RJD are backing the Manmohan Singh government from outside but in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh they are working against each other.
While AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi has emerged as a star campaigner of the Congress, Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav is depending on his son Tejaswi and
the SP supreme has given a field to his son Akhilesh Yadav.
Chief minister Nitish Kumar is fighting the battle from the front. Another chief minister Mayawati has fielded the candidates to increase her BSP’s space in Bihar and could play a role in the post-election scenario if the people throw a hung Assembly.