As Jayant Chaudhary ‘flirts’ with Cong, RLD-SP alliance hits a rough patch?
Scrapping reports of a rift, the RLD leadership has said that the civic poll has a different nature and parties need to satisfy the political ambitions of their local candidates.
Lucknow/Meerut Refuting reports of an alleged rift, the leaders of Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and Samajwadi Party (SP) in western Uttar Pradesh have clarified that both the parties are getting along well. They added that the speculation of the SP-RLD alliance hitting turbulence is just a rumour spread by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to create confusion ahead of the Lok Sabha polls next year.
The clarification comes after reports of an alleged rift between SP and RLD surfaced during the civic elections in Uttar Pradesh. In the recently-concluded civic elections, the alliance partners fought against each other for seats in municipal corporations, nagar mahapanchayat, and nagar panchayats. Notably, the two parties have been alliance partners since 2017 when the BJP came to power in Uttar Pradesh.
What’s fuelling the fire?
While the differences between the two parties started surfacing in the run-up to the urban local body polls, observers feel RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary’s idea of a united coalition with Congress is not going down well with SP, especially as its president Akhilesh Yadav has constantly been advocating a non-BJP, non-Congress alliance.
In this context, a senior RLD functionary said, “The alliance-dharma was not followed during the ULB polls. The SP did not engage in any due consultation. They should have consulted the RLD before deciding candidates on western U.P. seats of Saharanpur, Ghaziabad, Meerut, Aligarh, and Bareilly. Had they reserved some of these seats for us, it would have sent a good message to the electorate (about the alliance). Also, we would have won a seat or two.”
The RLD functionary also pointed out that the party’s success rate was comparatively better than that of the SP. The speculations of a rift further gained steam after Akhilesh skipped the swearing-in ceremony of Siddaramaiah in Karnataka but Chaudhary attended it.
In another such instance, Akhilesh recently backed West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s comment that Congress should support regional parties on seats where they have a strong foothold. However, a few days after, Chaudhary triggered speculations regarding an alliance with the Congress saying, “Our alliance with SP will continue. Simultaneously, the opposition parties will think about an alliance with Congress.”
SP, RLD in ‘damage control mode’
Scrapping reports of a rift, the RLD leadership has said that the civic poll has a different nature and parties need to satisfy the political ambitions of their local candidates. This is why the two parties contested against each other. In fact, Chaudhary didn’t even participate in canvassing for party candidates during civic bodies elections.
SP leader and former member of the state planning commission, Professor Sudhir Panwar, accused BJP of spreading rumours. He said that the saffron fold is targeting Muslims & Jat communities in western U.P. through rumours like ‘a disagreement over seat sharing in Lok Sabha, poor performance in urban local bodies elections, the exodus of Muslims from SP based on Moradabad & Meerut mayor elections, and Chaudhary’s participation in Karnataka’s swearing-in ceremony’.
Professor Panwar also claimed that since 2017, Akhilesh Yadav’s politics has stood for secularism & social justice -- the cherished ideals of Dr BR Ambedkar and Ram Manohar Lohia. The SP chief has made sincere efforts to forge alliances to check the expansion of BJP, sometimes at the expense of his own party, added Panwar.
Echoing a similar viewpoint, RLD leader and former minister Dr Mairajuddin Ahmad said that those (the BJP) who are baffled by the strength of the SP-RLD alliance are behind this ‘rumour-mongering’. He said, “The alliance will stay intact and grow even more stronger by the forthcoming general election... The recent poll losses in civic elections should not be seen as an outcome of a hypothetical rift in the alliance.”
Another senior SP leader said, “Both Akhilesh Ji and Jayant Ji are mature leaders. The SP-RLD alliance is not restrictive and the leaders are free to speak their minds. Neither Akhilesh Ji nor Jayant Ji have ever spoken ill about each other or used any blackmail tactics. These speculations are mere speculations. Remember how home minister Amit Shah, during the 2023 U.P. assembly polls, had made an open offer to Jayant Ji but the latter completely rejected it.”
