Nishad Party to decide going it alone or in alliance

A day after the Nishad Party pulled out of an alliance with the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, its President Sanjay Nishad said on Saturday that it will soon decide on whether to fight the coming polls on its own or in an alliance.

Commenting on the reason why his party pulled out of the SP alliance, he told IANS: "Mayawati was against the alliance and she does not want our party to rise in the state."

He said the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo was also not allowing the Nishad Party symbol to be put on hoardings along with the SP-BSP-Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) symbols.

Sanjay Nishad said that even SP chief Akhilesh Yadav was "not clear on whether to give tickets to our candidates or not".

The Nishad Party had announced the alliance with the SP on Tuesday at a joint press conference here with Yadav.

Sanjay Nishad's son, Pravin won the 2018 by-polls from Gorakhpur, a seat earlier represented by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

The SP gave the ticket to Pravin Nishad after it had stitched together an alliance with the Nishad Party and the Peace Party.

Speaking about the party's future, Sanjay Nishad said: "The core committee is holding a meeting today (Saturday) and we will decide whether we will contest alone or in alliance with other parties."

On Friday, he met Adityanath and the Bharatiya Janata Party state unit chief Mahendra Nath Pandey, fuelling speculation that the Nishad Party will contest in alliance with the saffron party in the state.

To a question if the Nishad Party will repeat the 2018 poll results against the SP-BSP-RLD alliance, he said: "They won the 2018 by-polls after the two lakh voters of the Nishad Party transferred their votes to the SP and the BSP."

He said Rambhuyal Nishad, who was the BSP's candidate in the 2014 elections came in at the third position while the SP's Ramjati Nishad was second.

The SP has named Rambhuyal Nishad from Gorakhpur as the party candidate this time.

--IANS

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