Samata Party (SAP) is a political party in India, initially formed in 1994 by George Fernandes and Nitish Kumar, and now led by Uday Mandal as its National President. Samata Party once launched Nitish Kumar as the Chief Minister of Bihar. It was an offshoot of the Janata Dal, with the alleged casteism of the parent party being the reason given for the split. The party has socialist leanings; at one point, it wielded considerable political and social influence in North India, particularly in Bihar. In 2003, most Samata Party members joined Janata Dal (United). Only a faction led by MP Brahmanand Mandal remained in Samata Party and continued to use the party name and symbol.

In the general elections of 1996, the Samata Party formed an alliance with the Bharatiya Janta Party and won eight seats, six of which were in Bihar and one each in Uttar Pradesh and Odisha. Before the election, the party was largely rooted only in Bihar. In the 1998 general elections, again in alliance with Bharatiya Janta Party, it won twelve seats, ten from Bihar and two from Uttar Pradesh.

In March 2000, Nitish Kumar was elected leader of the NDA for Chief Minister of Bihar post. On 3 March, he was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Bihar for the first time at the behest of the Vajpayee Government in the center. NDA and allies had 151 MLA whereas Lalu Prasad Yadav had 159 MLA in the 324-member house. Both alliances were less than the majority mark, 163. Nithish resigned because he could not prove his numbers in the house.

Radhabinod Koijam became the second chief minister from Samata Party when was sworn in as Chief Minister of Manipur on 15 February 2001. The government was, however, short-lived. The coalition he was leading fell in May of the same year.

In the 1999 Loksabha election, Samata Party was in an informal alliance with the Lok Shakti and the Janata Dal(U). A proposal to merge the three into a single party was called off in January 2000 by George Fernandes who said the party would contest in the 2000 Bihar Legislative Assembly election on its own.

In October 2003, George Fernandes, the president of the Samata Party, announced that the party would be completely merging with the Janata Dal (United). The Janata Dal (United) was part of the ruling coalition in the National Democratic Alliance.

Samata Party Member of parliament (Lok Sabha) Brahmanand Mandal was opposed to the merger split with the other members. Mandal was the leader of the minority faction opposing the merger. Since all the members did not support the official merge, and Brahmanand's faction challenged the merger of the party in front of ECI, the merger wasn't officially recognized by the Election Commission of India. The Election Commission of India decided that the merger was not technically complete and so a faction was allowed to function under the Samata Party name.

Party leader Sharad Yadav, said that the ECI decision would have no effect on his merger plans as all candidates of Samata Party would be contesting the upcoming 2004 Lok Sabha election as candidate of Janata Dal United on the election symbol of Arrow.