A day after announcing that his party was ready for an alliance in case the Congress party approached him, Pragtisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia (PSPL) chief Shivpal Yadav on Monday said his party was in touch with the grand old party.
“I am in touch with Congress. Talks are on,” Shivpal said.
Stressing on the importance of an alliance in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls, Shivpal also said, “Without the secular alliance fighting together, the BJP cannot be defeated. We have a very small group.”
Yadav’s statement comes days after the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) forged an alliance ditching the Congress party out of the new alignment. The Samajwadi Party and Congress had fought the last assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh as allies.
Reacting on the SP-BSP alliance, Shivpal said, “The alliance is a ‘thugbandhan’ (alliance of thugs) and is for money. It is possible that money must have been taken before forging the alliance.”
He also said, “We are in constant contact with the Congress party and the talks are on. Everyone is afraid because of our growing base.”
Earlier, the Congress party, after the announcement of the SP-BSP alliance, said it would contest from all the 80 seats in UP.
The decision was announced after Congress general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad and Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Raj Babbar held a meeting with senior leaders in Lucknow.
Keeping the option of forging an alliance open, Azad had said the party was willing to accommodate any secular party competent enough to fight the BJP.
“If any secular party is competent to fight the BJP and willing to go with us, we will accommodate them,” he had said.
