A day after resigning from the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), which dissolved all its units and frontal organisations on March 14, the party’s former Uttar Pradesh president Masood Ahmad on Sunday claimed that the Samajwadi Party (SP)-led alliance lost 50 to 60 seats during the recently concluded Assembly polls because of “ticket allocation gone wrong” and “lack of coordination among the allies”. 🗞️ Subscribe Now: Get Express Premium to access the best Election reporting and analysis 🗞️ The SP had allied with smaller parties such as the RLD in western UP, Om Prakash Rajbhar’s Suheldev Bharat Samaj Party (SBSP), and other smaller parties such as the Apna Dal (Kamerwadi), the Mahan Dal led by Keshav Dev Maurya, the Janwadi Party (Socialist) led by Sanjay Singh Chauhan, and Shivpal Yadav’s Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia). The RLD improved on its 2017 tally of just one seat and 1.78 per cent vote share by winning eight of the 33 constituencies it fought and securing a 2.85 per cent vote share. The 69-year-old leader — who was among the founder members of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and was considered to be close to its founder Kanshiram — wrote an open letter to RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary on Saturday, asking him and SP president Akhilesh Yadav if the alliance distributed tickets in exchange for money. On Sunday, he told The Indian Express, “When the time comes, I will see. I can’t say everything in just one day. My allegation is that apart from Congress, all parties, including the BJP, indulge in malpractices when it comes to ticket distribution in UP. The SP and RLD suffered most because of this.” He went on to add, “We made mistakes because of too much excitement and confidence. The tickets were not allotted correctly because of which we lost 50 to 60 seats. There was no coordination between the allies. Some parties gave signs that they were distant from each other. If there was an alliance, then no distance should have shown. Jayant ji (RLD president Jayant Chaudhary) should have toured the whole state. After the first phase, he sat at home and I don’t know what he was waiting for. He should have been called. SBSP chief Om Prakash Rajbhar and Apna Dal (K) chief Krishna Patel didn’t go to western UP. They should have. It should have shown that all parties of the alliance were together in all aspects. It didn’t show.” Ahmad, who was also part of the SP from 2008 to 2009, said the Akhilesh Yadav-led party should stop seeing Muslims as “majboor voters (compelled to vote for it due to lack of choice)”. He warned that the community's members would abandon the SP in the future if it continued to not raise their issues. “The leaders of the alliance led by SP didn’t go among Muslims. They considered that Muslims are majboor voters. I used to tell the leaders that they should not see them (Muslims) as having no choice. Consider the hijab issue. Recently, a verdict was given by a court and some people spoke about it, but no Opposition party has said anything. I have this complaint against those who are taking the votes of Muslims. Why haven’t the Muslim MLAs who have been elected by the Muslims for the SP-RLD said anything about the matter? You get tickets from the minority quota and receive the votes of Muslims. Now, why are you not speaking? They will have to change this habit.” In his open letter on Saturday, the former RLD leader accused the SP-led alliance of “ignoring” Muslims and Dalits. “They have remained quiet on all the issues of Muslims and Dalits. For example, the anti-CAA-NRC protests in UP in 2019. Azamgarh is the constituency of Akhilesh ji. In 2019, women sat in protest against the CAA in Belariyaganj of Azamgarh. They were assaulted by policemen, and suffered injuries. Some were left with fractured legs and hands. Priyankaji went to meet them. Why didn’t Akhilesh ji go there? My complaint is that if you want their votes, then you must raise their issues,” he told The Indian Express. A non-committal Ahmad refused to provide a definite answer when asked which party would prove to be the better choice for Muslims in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. “The fight will be between the Congress and BJP at the national level. I can’t say much about UP. There is the SP, the BSP, the RLD and other parties. We need to see if there is an alliance or not. So, it will be better to comment on this six months before the 2024 polls,” he said. Referring to his remark that Akhilesh Yadav is “egoistic”, the former RLD leader said, “If he was not egoistic, this wouldn’t have been the result. He became a bit egoistic because of the excitement. No one was consulted for ticket allocation. People’s seats were shifted without consultation.” Ahmad, who was appointed RLD state chief by former president and Jayant’s father Chaudhary Ajit Singh in 2016, has already received pushback from his former party and the SP for his comments. While RLD spokesperson Surendra Nath Trivedi has dismissed as “baseless and false” the allegations of the alliance allocating tickets in exchange for money, senior SP leaders have alleged that Ahmad quit the RLD after he was not fielded. He was in the fray from Tanda, which he first won on a BSP ticket in 1993, but the ticket finally went to the SP’s Ram Murti Verma who won from the constituency. Responding to the SP’s comments, the former RLD leader said, “I cannot comment on them. The SP should comment. Whatever had to happen has already happened.” So, what does the future hold for him? Ahmad said he started his political career in 1983 with the Bhartiya Kranti Morcha and now wants to revive the “non-political” outfit to work for the upliftment of Dalits and Muslims in Uttar Pradesh.
