BJP making fresh overtures to Jats in western UP?
The RLD has sought to counter the BJP’s outreach by writing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest civilian award, for Charan Singh
LUCKNOW Ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the unveiling of former Prime Minister late Chaudhary Charan Singh’s statue on his birth anniversary on December 23, possibly by chief minister Yogi Adityanath in Moradabad, is being viewed as the BJP’s fresh attempts to woo the Jat community that makes up for its numerical disadvantage among the OBC bloc by their consolidated presence in western UP.
The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), with pockets of appeal among Jats (mostly in western UP), led by Charan Singh’s grandson Jayant Chaudhary, has so far resisted overtures by the ruling BJP and stayed firmly with the state’s main opposition Samajwadi Party is a concern despite the BJP’s wins in west UP, party leaders concede.
A fresh outreach to tap the legacy of Charan Singh by unveiling the tallest statue of the stalwart from the Jat community has evoked interest as the statue unveiling is happening in the backdrop of Yogi Adityanath government’s decision to announce a public holiday on December 23, Charan Singh’s birth anniversary.
The RLD has sought to counter the BJP’s outreach by writing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest civilian award, for Charan Singh.
“We have written to the PM for Bharat Ratna to Chaudhary sahib…and what better day to announce it than December 23, his birth anniversary,” said RLD’s trade wing leader Rohit Agarwal.
The BJP quickly countered the RLD move. “We too are all for Bharat Ratna to Charan Singh ji. But the question is that what were parties like RLD, who shared long stints in power at the Centre, were doing all this while?,” said Union minister and Muzaffarnagar MP Sanjeev Balyan speaking to HT.
Balyan refuted the theory of Jats not being with the BJP, but it appears that the choice of the venue unveiling of Charan Singh statue - Moradabad – isn’t without reason.
Of the 16 seats that BJP lost in UP in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, seven were from west UP, including all six seats in Moradabad division.
In 2022 UP polls too, the BJP, despite its overall impressive wins, couldn’t stop SP-RLD from making an impression in the Jat belt, bagging 17 of the 27 seats in Moradabad division against BJP’s 10 and 9 of the 16 seats in Saharanpur region, from where the Congress launched its UP Jodo Yatra on Tuesday.
Soon after, the BJP surprised many by picking its first Jat chief from west UP in Bhupendra Chaudhary, who resigned as Panchayati Raj minister in Yogi Adityanath government to take up the new responsibility.
Just as Chaudhary was settling into his new job after delivering impressive wins in the urban local body polls, the BJP lost Khatauli assembly bypoll in Muzaffarnagar, the area from where Union minister Sanjeev Balyan, a Jat leader, is the local MP.
“It’s true that the BJP is desperate to win over Jats and it is not as if the community hasn’t voted for the BJP. The win of former Mumbai police chief Satyapal Singh from Baghpat, that of Hema Malini from Mathura in Lok Sabha polls are proof of that. The BJP’s outreach is welcome, but due to the SP-RLD pact, the BJP has been unable to make sizeable inroads (among the community),” said Dharamvir Balyan, chief of RLD’s disciplinary committee who hails from Muzaffarnagar.
In 2022 UP polls too, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had targeted the SP-RLD alliance as SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and his RLD counterpart Jayant Chaudhary, both OBC leaders, were taking ‘anna pledge (pledge over food grains for solidarity)’. Around 2022 UP polls, PM Modi had travelled to Aligarh to lay the foundation stone of a state university named after Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh, a Jat king.
Back then, the outreach was taken as a way to placate the community that was at the forefront of the stir against the three farm laws.
“The Jats have backed BJP in various elections, but they finally settled with SP-RLD combine because SP took up issues like Jat reservation, cleared sugarcane dues and provided cheap electricity,” said Samajwadi Party leader Sudhir Panwar.
