Terming the merger of the offshoots of 'Janata Parivar' as "opportunism", Union Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma said that such arrangements did not sustain earlier.
"The merger (of six parties) is not due to some ideology, its opportunism and such arrangements did not sustain earlier,", Sharma said told reporters here yesterday.
"BJP got 73 seats (including Apna Dal) in Loksabha polls (out of 80). The future in the state is of BJP,", he added.
Six parties had yesterday merged to form a new party to take on a resurgent BJP, especially in the context of the upcoming Assembly elections in Bihar later this year.
The ruling parties in UP and Bihar, Samajwadi Party and JD(U), RJD, INLD, JD(S) and Samajwadi Janata Party formally decided to merge at a meeting at the residence of SP President Mulayam Singh Yadav, who has been chosen the head of the new outfit.
The merger had come almost two decades after the then Janata Dal disintegrated in the 90s.
