Formidable SP-RLD alliance to take on BJP in UP

By Ajay Jha | NT

New Delhi: A key pre-poll alliance has been finalised in the pollbound Uttar Pradesh at a meeting between the Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and his Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) counterpart Jayant Chaudhary in the state capital Lucknow on Tuesday.

According to information coming in, the alliance would be confined to western Uttar Pradesh, which is considered a stronghold of Jayant Chaudhary’s family since the days of his grandfather, the former prime minister Chaudhary Charan Singh. Samajwadi Party will set aside about 36 seats for the RLD, of which about six would be Samajwadi Party leaders who would contest on the RLD ticket. Western Uttar Pradesh, bordering the national capital Delhi, Haryana and Uttarakhand, has 107 seats, with a sizable Jat and Muslim population.

RLD presently is the most sought-after political outfit in Uttar Pradesh. The party was in a bad shape after failing to win any seat in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls and 2019 parliamentary elections, followed by the death of its founder Ajit Singh earlier this year.

However, it witnessed a quick change in its fortunes due to the farmers’ agitation.

Being a homegrown party, the Jat farmer leaders are expected to support a fellow Jat Jayant Chaudhary.

Besides the Samajwadi Party, the state’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress party were also wooing RLD for a possible alliance.

Jayant Chaudhary, however, preferred a regional party to the two national parties, terming the Samajwadi Party as the only credible party in the state. The seats offered to the RLD are located in Meerut, Agra, Moradabad and Saharanpur divisions of western UP.

Jayant Chaudhary said after the meeting that a formal announcement along with details of the seats that his party would contest would be announced soon.