How 2022 UP elections are best opportunity for Jayant Chaudhary and RLD to be back in the reckoning

Plural societies, the world over, are characterised by erosion in voting loyalties and a decline in ethnic cleavages. However, when it comes to the Jats of western Uttar Pradesh they remain a close-knit community that still votes en bloc.

So when the Jats per constituency stack up to a hard-to-ignore 35 per cent in a very deeply difficult Assembly election, they become the proverbial “beautiful woman” with a line of eager suitors. Largely dependent on agriculture for their livelihood, the Jats cast their lot with Chaudhary Charan Singh in the late 1960s, after he left the Congress and formed Bharatiya Kranti Dal, catapulting him to the position of chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1967.

Decades later, his grandson Jayant Chaudhary, who leads the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) is furiously campaigning with alliance partner SP chief Akhilesh Yadav using his grandfather’s strategies and tactics to rally the troops. But that is not all Jayant is banking on.

Western UP has a total of 136 Assembly seats. First and foremost, the sheer numbers of the Jats in west UP. Of these, in 30 to 40 constituencies spread across the districts of Baghpat, Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Bijnor, Meerut, Aligarh, Mathura and Moradabad they are a whopping 35 per cent of the electorate. That percentage is still 18 per cent across the entire region.

There are pollsters who feel there are other dominant castes with a larger presence. Dalits and Muslims are over five times their number not just in this region, but also across the entire state. Jats constitute nearly two per cent of the entire state’s population. So why so much focus on the Jat community?

Undoubtedly, just the Jat vote won’t be enough to sweep west UP. For that a combination of Jat-Muslim votes is required. It is here that the Jayant-Akhilesh combine could prove effective. Akhilesh would also seek to break a section of the Dalit votes as part of the greater OBC rainbow offering.

Second, the palpable disenchantment within the Gurjar vote-bank due to the farm protests works in favour of RLD-SP. Also, Jat BJP leaders kept in the cold by Yogi Adityanath will cost the BJP dearly.

A quick look now at how political parties have fared since 2012. The BJP saw a phenomenal jump in western UP from 13 seats in the 2012 Assembly elections to 65 seats five years later.

In the parliamentary polls held in 2014, the BJP won all the nine Lok Sabha seats of western UP. The party’s vote-share among Jats increased to 77 per cent.

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In 2019, the BJP retained eight of the nine western UP Lok Sabha seats. Saharanpur went to the BSP. How did the BJP get to these excellent numbers? A primary reason, according to local poll pundits, was the dangerous rift between the Jat and Muslims following the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots.

This time, the Jat-farmer identity is also boosted through the popularity of BKU leader Rakesh Tikait, who has been constantly targeting the BJP. He has been warning the voters based in the region against communal polarisation. The mowing down of farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri, allegedly by Ashish Mishra, the son of BJP leader and Union Minister of State Ajay Mishra Teni, further infuriated the farmers.

The Samajwadi Party had fared poorly in this region in 2017 and could win only two seats in the first phase. With the change in scenario, Akhilesh is now looking to make maximum gains in this belt.

Two political giants from the past who emerged from west UP were Charan Singh and the late farmer union leader Mahendra Singh Tikait.

Charan Singh became the first non-Congress chief minister of UP in 1967 and reclaimed the post in 1970. He was dead against the Jana Sangh — the BJP’s predecessor — and did his level best to consolidate Jat and Muslim voters of western UP. He later became the prime minister for truncated six months between 1979 and 1980.

But since then the RLD steadily lost ground. After Charan Singh’s demise, his IIT-educated son, Ajit Singh, and then Janata Dal leader Mulayam Singh Yadav headbutted to take over the party’s control. Mulayam became a force to reckon with in UP, while Ajit Singh specialised in the political version of hopscotch.

Ajit was part of the VP Singh-led Central government in 1989, but defected to the Congress in 1996. In 1999, he formed the RLD, which bagged two Lok Sabha seats — Baghpat and Kairana. In 2002, the party allied with the BJP and won 14 out of the 38 assembly seats it contested. This remains the highest number of seats ever won by the RLD.

In 2007, it went solo and won only 10 Assembly seats. It had 9 in 2012 and only one in 2017. Its lone MLA later joined the BJP. In 2019, both Ajit Singh and son Jayant Chaudhary lost in the parliamentary polls. Ajit passed away last year.

Mahendra Tikait, who led the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), held massive agrarian protests in the 1980s and the 1990s, including the dharna of five lakh farmers outside Parliament in 1988 that had brought the national capital to a standstill. Here again, recall how the police played Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd and assorted hard rock on loudspeakers at the Boat Club where Tikait and his men had holed up. The cops possibly thought this may deter the farmers but that never happened.

Despite all the hiccups, Charan Singh and Tikait’s legacy continues to hold sway. The grandson Jayant Chaudhary is giving it his all, while Tikait’s son Rakesh Tikait is the poster boy of the farmers’ agitation that led to the PM scrapping farm reform laws.

Indulge me readers, as I share a personal anecdote.

SN Ghosh was editor of The Pioneer, Lucknow, during the 1970s (also, my grandfather). Pioneer House was close to the Vidhan Sabha (state assembly) building and Charan Singh, then chief minister of UP would drop in frequently. Charan Singh was a stickler for honesty. My grandfather’s younger brother was then with the UP Police, known to be a brutally honest officer. Charan Singh once confided that if he had a few more police officers like SN Ghosh’s brother he would change the face of the state.

Years later, through frequent interactions with Charan Singh’s son Ajit Singh, I realised the change of guard had also meant a different worldview. Pragmatic to the core, Ajit Singh loved the limelight taking great care of his image. Politically, he remained extremely malleable, frittering away Charan Singh’s legacy as other UP-based politicians honed into Western UP and widened their influence.

The 2022 Assembly elections are the best opportunity for Jayant Chaudhary and RLD to be back in the reckoning. The stars are aligned in his favour. Let’s see if they shine too.

The author is CEO of nnis. Views expressed are personal.

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