Bengaluru DHNS: The merger of the Janata Parivar, which has suffered a setback, would take some more time to become a reality, said JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda on Thursday.

Addressing the media during the JD(S) national executive committee meeting in Bengaluru, Gowda said that the merger should have been effected before the Bihar polls.

But as Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav chose to pull out of the JD(U)-led grand alliance during the Bihar polls, the merger had to be stalled.

“I am not saying the Parivar merger will happen tomorrow. But, the Bihar polls were an indication of the fact that communal forces like the BJP can be ousted if socialist, left parties come together. This will take time,” he reasoned.

He also said that the developments to unfold during the upcoming polls in Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and Assam, would also serve as indicators to whether or not the Parivar parties would align.

He said that the JD(S) would act as a formidable party both in Karnataka and Kerala where the party would face the elections independently.

The meeting saw executive members of the party from Kerala, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand and Uttaranchal.

The party’s secretary general Danish Ali strongly condemned the rising intolerance being spread by communal forces in the country. “We are calling upon the secular forces and regional parties to fight the BJP. Only the secular-democratic-socialist-left parties can give a fitting reply to the communal BJP,” he declared.

The JD(S) would take lead as the ‘non-Congress; non-BJP’ political option in the country as there was misrule and rampant corruption in all the BJP and Congress-ruled states.

The party also resolved to donate Rs one crore towards relief works in rain-hit Tamil Nadu, he added.

Party elections

The party will hold elections to its block, taluk, zilla, state and national councils by the month of May.

Photo credit: DHNS