Mangaluru: The Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) will be part of the proposed Mahagathbandhan to fight the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the forthcoming Parliamentary elections, said SDPI’s national president M.K. Faizy here on Tuesday.

Talking to reporters, Mr. Faizy said that the party has been campaigning against the Narendra Modi-led BJP Government’s policies and actions that he said was dividing people on communal lines. He said that an united front of parties alone was the way to prevent the BJP from coming back to power next year.

Asked whether the SDPI will be given seats to contest in the Mahagathbandhan, Mr. Faizy said that it was too premature. “At present, talks are still on and the Mahagathbandhan is still in the making. We expect parties to keep aside their egos and form an united opposition,” he said. Regardless of whether they get seats to contest or not, SDPI will be part of the united front and it will not lose its political identity by being part of it.

Brushing aside the perception that SDPI was a party supporting a fundamentalist group of a particular section of society, Mr. Faizy said that the SDPI was fighting for the rights of a particular community as a large number of party supporters were from that community. “But the party has been an advocate of harmonious living and has never spoken against any religion.

For us, the interest of the country stands foremost,” he said. On the issue of triple talaq, Mr. Faizy said that by passing the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Ordinance 2018, the Union government has criminalised an issue which was civil in nature. There are a lot of infirmities in the Ordinance, he said.

SDPI vice-president Sharfuddin Ahmed said that it was highly questionable of the BJP, which claims to be a champion of Uniform Civil Code, to come out with a community-specific Ordinance.