RLD's Jayant Chaudhary: Seeking Greener Pastures (image: facebook.com/JayantRLD)
After former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh was conferred the prestigious Bharat Ratna Award, his grandson and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief, Jayant Chaudhary, wrote on X: “Dil jeet liya” (Won hearts). Following, he met Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP President JP Nadda, and in March, Chaudhary”s RLD joined the NDA alliance.
RLD chief is referred to as “Bade Chaudhary”, a title earlier given to Jayant’s grandfather and later to his father, Ajit Singh. He began helming the party after the death of his father in 2021.
Jayant Chaudhary represented Mathura parliamentary constituency in the 15th Lok Sabha.
He strongly opposed the 1894 land acquisition law and introduced a private member”s bill on land acquisition in the lower house. He has been associating with agitations to protest the unlawful acquisition of land in the state and in the districts, including Mathura, Noida, Hathras, Greater Noida, Agra, and Aligarh. Though he contested from Mathura in the 2014 elections, he lost to BJP candidate Hema Malini.
During his term in the Lok Sabha, he associated with various committees, including the Standing Committees on Commerce, Agriculture, and Finance, the Committee on Ethics, the Consultative Committee on Finance, and the Committee on Government Assurances. Besides, he served as the co-chairman of the FICCI Indo-British Forum of Parliamentarians and a member of the Indo-Venezuela Parliamentary Friendship Group.
The RLD has not been associated with the BJP over a decade. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the RLD joined the BJP. In 2012, the party joined the Congress-led UPA. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and 2022 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, the RLD was associated with the Samajwadi Party-led alliance.
Political experts observe that RLD joining the BJP-led NDA was meant to advance its core vote bank and was a collaborative attempt to make the party more influential in Western Uttar Pradesh. The consolidation of the Jat vote bank, where the party”s sole focus relies, hopes to attain through its alliance with the BJP. Though its partnership with SP-RLD was expected to bring together Jat and Muslim votes, it failed to foster them as they expected. The Jat-Muslim vote bank has become non-existent, especially after the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, Moneycontrol reports. In contrast, the Jat population either votes for the BJP or RLD, and since both parties are coming together this time, Jats can vote as a group for the NDA.
The Lok Sabha constituencies comprise significant share of Jat population in Uttar Pradesh includes Muzaffarnagar, Kiarana, Bijnor, Nageena, Baghpat, Mathura, Amroha, Fatehpur Sikri, Meerut, Hathras, Bulandshahr, and Aligarh.
In the polls, RLD fielded candidates: Rajkumar Sangwan from Baghpat and Chandan Chauhan from Bijnor.
