File photo: Leaders of the new 'Janata Parivar' at a meeting in Delhi. (Press Trust of India)
Six parties that were once part of what was called the Janata Parivar are meeting at the Delhi residence of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. A merger is expected to be announced after the meeting today.
Apart from Mulayam Singh's party, the new entity will include Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United, Lalu Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal, former prime minister HD Deve Gowda's Janata Dal (Secular), Indian National Lok Dal and Samajwadi Janata Party.
It is likely to be named either the Samajwadi Janata Party or Samajwadi Janata Dal and is expected to have as an election symbol the Samajwadi Party's cycle.
Nitish Kumar, Lalu Yadav, Mr Gowda and other leaders are present at today's meeting. The first big test for the new entity is the Bihar elections later this year, where the two stalwarts, bitter rivals for years, will together take on a BJP determined to add the state to its kitty.
The BJP began an early campaign in Bihar on Tuesday, with party chief Amit Shah declaring, "I want to tell Lalu Yadav and Nitish, a zero plus zero is always equal to zero. So no matter what you do, the BJP will win the upcoming elections in Bihar by a big margin."
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP and its allies won 31 of Bihar's 40 seats, vanquishing Nitish and Lalu who fought separately.
But, the vote share of the BJP alliance in the national elections was about 36 per cent, roughly the same as that of Nitish and Lalu's parties combined. But it did not translate into seats as there was a three-way fight in most seats which benefited the BJP.
That math was factored in when Nitish and Lalu buried decades of differences last year and in a 10-seat by-election late last year, they joined hands, campaigned and fought together, along with the Congress. They won six, the BJP only four.
Merger talks began then and Mulayam Singh and the other parties with a socialist base were roped in to resurrect the Janata Parivar. They have practiced working as one in Parliament sessions over the last few months.