LUCKNOW: Stocking a controversy by bringing the name of BJP MP and famous Bollywood actor Hema Malini into poll discourse, Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Jayant Chaudhary claimed that his party leader Yogesh Chaudhury was wooed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah saying he would make him stars like Malini if he joined the party.
Jayant Chaudhary, who had rejected the BJP overtures last week, made the comments while campaigning in Mathura on Tuesday.
Referring to his party leader on stage with him, Chaudhary said, "Yogesh was saying he was told by Shah that, "Yogesh, join us. I will make you like Hema Malini."
His audience laughed and clapped at his reference to the actor-politician who is a BJP MP from Mathura. "I don't know what all they keep saying about me. It is not that they have any love or feeling for me. I tell them -- What will you get by pleasing me? I don't want to be Hema Malini. What will you do for the people? What have you done for the families of 700 farmers who died during protests? Why is Teni still a minister?," the RLD leader said.
RLD is in alliance with Samajwadi Party in the UP. The party has declared 33 RLD candidates across western UP. Jayant, who has not won any election since 2014, is believed to be having some traction among the Jat farmers’ community especially after the unrest over three contentious farm laws which the BJP repealed in November last year.
Meanwhile, reacting to Jayant’s controversial statement, Union minister Anurag Thakur, who is also handling BJP’s Uttar Pradesh campaign, hit back at RLD chief saying that the actor-turned-Mathura MP was elected based on her capabilities, popularity and work.
“Not once, but many times she was elected to the Parliament with the public’s blessings. It is true he cannot become Hema Malini. He does not have the people’s blessing,” Thakur said at a media briefing.
Chaudhary lost the Mathura seat to Hema Malini in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. In 2019, he fought against Satya Pal Singh and lost from Baghpat.
Amit Shah, at a meeting with over 250 Jat leaders in Delhi on January 26, had sent feelers to Jayant saying he had gone into the wrong family and that the BJP doors would always be open for the RLD.
"Akhilesh Yadav and Jayant Chaudhary are together only till counting. If their (Samajwadi) government is formed, then Azam Khan will sit (in their government) and Jayant Bhai will be out," Shah had said later while addressing a poll rally.