Masood Ahmad. (File) The president of Rashtriya Lok Dal’s (RLD) dissolved Uttar Pradesh unit, Masood Ahmad, on Saturday resigned from the party and asked if party chief Jayant Chaudhary and Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav distributed tickets in lieu of money in the recently concluded UP Assembly polls.
In an open letter to Chaudhary, Ahmad, who was appointed the RLD state unit president in 2016, also alleged that some of the “ally partners of the SP and RLD were humiliated, and that SP chief Akhilesh Yadav should give up his ego and respect his leaders”.
RLD spokesperson Surendra Nath Trivedi said all the allegations levelled by Ahmad were “baseless and false”.
Last week, Chaudhary dissolved all RLD units and frontal organisations as part of a post-poll reorganisation drive. A three-member panel
was formed to review the poll performance. The RLD, which fought the polls in alliance with the SP, had won eight seats (2.85% vote share) this time against just one (1.78% vote share) in 2017.
In the letter, Ahmad wrote, “Through you (Jayant), I would also like to suggest to Mr Akhilesh Yadav that he should give up his ego, and respect the leaders of the party and the alliance. By humiliating leaders like Imran Masood, you are ruining your image among Muslims. Till when will Muslims and other communities vote for us because of no alternative? The key to Mulayam Singh Yadav’s politics was that he stayed among people. People don’t like it if their leader only becomes active during election time.”
In a series of questions, Ahmad asked whether money was taken for allotment of tickets in the election. “Why were seats not finalised for the alliance with time in hand, and why were tickets given so late? Why were the RLD, Apna Dal (K), Azad Samaj Party and Mahan Dal humiliated? Why were you quiet on issues concerning Muslims and Dalits? Why did you distribute tickets as per your wishes?
RLD spokesperson Trivedi told The Sunday Express, “These allegations are false… Another aspect is that president Jayant Chaudhary had recently dissolved all the units and frontal organisations of the RLD, so how is he the state president?”
Meanwhile, the SP on Saturday said that the meeting with its newly elected MLAs and the MLCs had been postponed to March 26 from March 21 due to nominations of MLC candidates. All party MLAs and MLCs have been instructed to attend the meeting at the party’s state headquarters in Lucknow at 10 am.
- The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards.
