Voters to decide Ajit Singh, Jayant Chaudhary’s political relevance today

LUCKNOW: More than preserving the legacy of Chaudhary Charan Singh as a leader of farmers and Jats, the threat of remaining politically relevant in UP looms large over the father-son duo of Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh and Jayant Chaudhary in the first phase of polling on Thursday.

After entering the SP and BSP pre-poll alliance late, both Ajit and Jayant changed their poll constituencies.

While Ajit moved to Muzaffarnagar, Jayant moved to Baghpat, the constituency represented by his father six times.Both Ajit and Jayant are confident that being in direct contest with BJP would help them win since Congress has not fielded candidates against them.

“BJP is nowhere in the fight. Our gathbandhan is strong and we will win,” said RLD national spokesperson, Anil Dubey. Ajit and Jayant are going from village to village, holding ‘Bhaichara’ meetings to bring Muslims and Jats together and vote for them. RLD is banking on consolidation of Jats, Dalits and Muslims while BJP is also wooing Jats and Gujjars who together account for 25% of the total voting population in Muzaffarnagar and Baghpat, said political experts.

In 2014 elections, despite having a pre-poll alliance with Congress, both Ajit and Jayant were decimated in Baghpat and Mathura by Satyapal Singh and Hema Malini, respectively, as BJP swept west UP. Election commission records show that Ajit got 19.86% votes while Satyapal polled 42.15% votes. Interestingly, BSP and SP candidates had received 14.11% and 21.26% votes, respectively.

This time, Ajit is pitted against sitting MP Sanjeev Balyan who had received over 58% votes in 2014, which was much higher than BSP, SP and RLD total taken together. Similarly, Jayant lost to Hema Malini by over 3 lakh votes. The cine-star-turned politician had polled over 53% votes and her winning margin was more than RLD, SP and BSP votes taken together.

After BJP’s massive win in 2014 and 2017 elections, the opposition joined hands for Kairana bypolls necessitated by the death of sitting MP Hukum Singh. SP candidate Tabassum Hasan fielded on RLD ticket defeated BJP’s Mriganka Singh by over 55,000 votes.