BJP asks Shivpal to merge his outfit with saffron party

Apparently sensing an opportunity in rebel Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Singh Yadav, who has formed his own outfit and declared to field his candidates from all Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh, BJP has asked Shivpal to merge his outfit with the saffron party.

The proposal for the merger was put forth by senior BJP leader and UP Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya. ''We will welcome if Shivpal Singh Yadav decides to merge his outfit with the BJP... he will be accorded due respect in our party,'' Maurya said.

He said that there was no possibility of any kind of electoral understanding with Shivpal. ''We will not have any electoral alliance with him but he is welcome to merge his Morcha with BJP,'' he added.

Shivpal has formed a Samajwadi Secular Morcha after parting ways with SP supremo Akhilesh Yadav. All efforts by Shivpal's elder brother and SP patron Mulayam Singh Yadav to persuade the rebel leader to return to party fold had failed.

Shivpal had recently heaped praise on UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath and called him an ''honest'' man, who was doing a good job.

Interestingly the BJP leaders have also been avoiding Shivpal while they criticise the SP leaders, including Akhilesh.

BJP feels that Shivpal could prove to be a ''spoiler'' for the grand alliance if he formed his own outfit and puts up its candidates in UP in the next Lok Sabha elections in 2019.

Akhilesh had, a few months before the 2017 Assembly polls in UP, sacked Shivpal from the post of general secretary and also as a minister. Akhilesh had later convened a meeting of the party's national executive and got him elected as its national president replacing his father Mulayam Singh Yadav.