Pappu Yadav, Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan form Progressive Democratic Alliance to contest Bihar assembly polls

Patna (Bihar) [India], September 28 (ANI): Pappu Yadav's Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) and Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan's Azad Samaj Party (ASP) joined hands on Monday to form the Progressive Democratic Alliance (PDA) for contesting Bihar Assembly polls.
"There are two alliances in Bihar, one is casteist and the other is communal. Our coalition is humanitarian. This coalition is about socialism, not politics. We will announce the face of the coalition in the coming days," Pappu Yadav said during a press conference.
"This is not the final coalition. We will come up with a common minimum programme in the next two days. We will welcome everyone who wants to save Bihar. We are ready to welcome Chirag Paswan, Upendra Kushwaha and we are also ready to welcome the Congress," he added.
Chandrashekhar Azad said, "We will always be available at places where a fight for justice is going on."
The Election Commission announced that Bihar assembly elections will be held in three phases: October 28, and November 3 and 7. The counting of votes will take place on November 10.
In the 2015 Assembly polls, JDU, RJD, and Congress had fought the elections together under the Mahagathbandhan banner. On the other hand, the BJP-led NDA had fought the elections with Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and other allies.
RJD with 80 seats had emerged as the single largest party in the elections, followed by JDU (71), and BJP (53). However, BJP got the largest vote share (24.42 per cent), followed by RJD with 18.35 per cent and JDU (16.83 per cent).
After the polls, however, a rift emerged between JDU and the RJD in 2017, leading to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar snapping ties and rejoining the BJP-led NDA to retain power in Bihar. (ANI)