Bhim Army founder and Azad Samaj Party president Chandrashekhar Azad 'Ravan' met the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) president Jayant Chaudhary earlier this week and extended support to Madan Bhaiyya, the latter's candidate in the bypoll for the Khatauli Assembly seat. Curiously, he has not announced such support for RLD's ally, the Samajwadi Party (SP), in the Mainpuri Lok Sabha and Rampur Sadar Assembly bypolls. Speaking to The Indian Express in Lucknow, Azad said the SP is on a strong wicket on both seats, adding that if at any point he felt that the “opposition” candidate was appearing weak, he would certainly extend his help to them. “If SP appears weak or the state government uses its [administrative] machinery to weaken them, I'll volunteer to support the SP candidates there,” Azad said. The SP and the RLD are contesting the bypolls together, as they did in the 2022 Assembly elections. Regarding his communication with the SP president, Akhilesh Yadav, Azad called for unity of opposition parties. “There are issues like unemployment, economic distress. Farmers and labourers are becoming financially weaker. Budget for education has been reduced in UP. The government has stopped scholarship for deprived sections. We all raise these issues loudly, but we get divided when it comes to questioning the government responsible for these problems. Azad Samaj Party believes we should learn from our past mistakes and develop a new alternative in UP to stop the communal and divisive forces,” Azad said, adding, “Instead of waiting any more, we are blowing the bugle from Khatauli for a good government, and to stop BJP with a strong alternative.” Azad said Khatauli was the land where riots were triggered in 2013, and brotherhood disturbed in UP. “We have come together to spread a message of love and unity from the same place. Kawal village [where two youths were killed, triggering the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots] is in Khatauli.” Azad said he and RLD chief Jayant are youths from western UP, and both understand the local dialect and problems of the region. “Together, we'll take the fight ahead,” he said. On the failure of his talks with SP, for an alliance in the UP Assembly elections, and the fresh beginning with his support for RLD in Khatauli, Azad said, “Alliances are formed and broken. There were several alliance partners with Akhilesh, and they were making tall claims. But today, they are not with him. So we are working to make an alliance in public. In the past one year, Jayant and I visited Rajasthan together and we're trying to fight together on basic issues.” On the BSP leadership not meeting him for alliance talks in the past, Azad said, “I took the initiative, suggesting that we stay united. I always respect her (Mayawati) struggle. She has struggled at one time. But she is no longer involved in such a struggle, due to some reasons. Since 2012, her party's performance is constantly declining. If her party is going down, she is responsible for it, not me. It appears that she rejected (meeting him) because she is either annoyed with me, or feels insecure in my presence. Or it's possible that some people have misled her about me. With my hard work, I'll prove that I'm a true follower of Kanshi Ram. People know me because of my struggle and hard work,” Azad said. Azad added that Mayawati did not give him an opportunity to learn from her. “So I consider her as a guru and am trying to learn from her, like Eklavaya,” he said. Claiming that his party was prepared to contest in the UP local body polls, Azad added that he was trying to bring all opposition parties together ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. He said his party has organisations in over a dozen states, including Bihar, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, UP, Haryana, Delhi and Himachal Pradesh, and that Azad Samaj Party will contest Lok Sabha polls there. But before that, he said, his party will contest the Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan Assembly elections. While he himself lost to Yogi Adityanath from Gorakhpur Urban in the 2022 Assembly elections, Azad said if his party's core committee decides, he will contest against PM Modi in 2024. On Congress's Bharat Jodo Yatra, Azad said, “It is their yatra, let them connect with people. But they should pay attention to weaker sections in states where their party is ruling. NCRB data says that like UP, Rajasthan too is 'daman ka pradesh' for Dalits. I've not seen a government as useless as Rajasthan's under Congress in the entire country.”
