‘The RLD chief is believed to be in pursuit of a harmonious alliance in the state’.
NEW DELHI: With a broad-based Opposition alliance formation in mind, Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Jayant Chaudhary is seen to be keen on pushing for an alliance in Uttar Pradesh for general elections which would include the Samajwadi Party, Congress, RLD and the Azad Samaj Party (ASP) led by Chandra Shekhar Azad Ravan.
Jayant Chaudhary is said to have a good relationship with Rahul Gandhi and an amicable relationship with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Thus, he is believed to be in pursuit of a harmonious alliance and strife-free seat-sharing formula in the state.
The idea behind the “strongly woven alliance” is that the party leaders believe Dalits and Muslims could play an important role in the coming national elections, as Muslims are believed to en masse vote against the BJP and Dalits may come together behind Azad’s formation. A party insider in RLD said, “This time, all these votes if polled for a single anti-BJP candidate, can make difference.”
Moreover, a well-known survey agency in India has marked out 47 out of 80 parliamentary seats in Uttar Pradesh which are dominated by Muslim-Yadav-Dalit (MYD) population that could prove to be the bane for BJP in the elections. In these 47 constituencies, the MYD population is higher than 50%. The data further suggests that every parliamentary constituency in UP has more than 40% of MYD population. However, it is also believed that the Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav is sulking away from Congress currently so that he can adequately convey to the grand old party that he can solidly contest the general elections on his own. On the condition of anonymity, a Samajwadi Party spokesperson said, “He wants a huge chunk out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats. And when the seat-sharing formula with the Congress is discussed, he would want to have an upper hand in demanding the number of seats of his choice. There would also be a consideration that if he can win a huge chunk of seats, he could also be a contender for the Prime Minister’s position.”
However, experts think the Samajwadi Party chief, in order to dream of the PM’s post, should be the chief minister of the state in order to be the contender for the top post as it doesn’t sound well to think of ascending to the PM’s position when there are political bigwigs like Nitish Kumar, Sharad Pawar and many more in line.
A political strategist based in Uttar Pradesh said, “It is necessary for the three parties and Azad to come together so that they can create a strong front against the BJP in UP. Last time, when SP and BSP came together, it was perceived by some that the alliance would do well, but voters at the end of the day think whether the formation they are voting for can come to power at the Centre. That’s where they failed.” He further added, “People knew no matter how big the alliance was, it does not have any chance of forming the national government. Had they brought the Congress with them, the alliance may have been able to make a difference and dent the BJP, as the alliance would have given people the opportunity to think that the Congress can come to power and with it their alliance partners would have accumulated more votes subsequently. But the whole strategy was erroneous.”