LUCKNOW: ‘Chhote Chaudhury’, as Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh is affectionately known, doesn’t believe in mincing words. Addressing a public rally at Baraut in Baghpat seeking votes for son Jayant, attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi he said that had the PM gone to Sri Lanka, he would have taken credit for killing demon king Ravana.
Once, RLD used to be a force to reckon with in western UP. Now, the stakes for the father-son duo are higher as it’s a battle for survival. However, after RLD joined the SP-BSP alliance there is palpable excitement in the party.
The winds of change swayed its traditional Jat vote bank towards the BJP. Gradually, the transition was such that it pushed the ‘kisan’ party to the margins in UP.
“Political decisions taken by Ajit Singh and his image of being a ‘perennial turncoat’ also played a part in the decline of his party,” said a senior political scientist AK Mishra. The decline has been such that the party which had won five of seven seats in 2009, failed to even open its account in 2014.
In the current political scenario, joining the SP-BSP alliance was the only hope of survival for RLD. “The issue of survival and protecting its pocket boroughs was so crucial that RLD had to climb down to just three constituencies - Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat and Mathura - while negotiating seats in the gathbandhan,” said senior political observer JP Shukla.
The biggest challenge for the RLD now is not only to win the three seats but also transfer its vote bank - Jats and Muslims- to SP and BSP.
Ajit Singh and his son Jayant’s decision to contest from Muzaffarnagar and Bagpat was the only option left to them. In 2014, both the leaders had lost their strongholds - Baghpat and Mathura - to the BJP. “Ajit Singh has shifted to Muzaffarnagar from Baghpat expecting consolidation of Jat-Muslim votes, which were divided in the 2013 communal flare-up. The Jat-Muslim disharmony had benefitted the BJP in Muzaffarnagar in 2014,” says JP Shukla.
But what gave Ajit Singh the confidence to change his constituency which he has represented in Lok Sabah six times? “The results of Kairana bypoll in 2018 strengthened his confidence and pushed him to give another try to RLD’s revival,” says Mishra.