Buoyed by Lok Sabha strike rate, RLD looks to expand UP footprint, rejigs social math

The BJP gave the RLD two west UP seats to contest in the polls — Baghpat and Bijnor — both of which it won, giving the party a 100 per cent strike rate. While RLD candidate Chandan Chauhan bagged the Bijnor seat by 37,508 votes, the party’s Rajkumar Sangwon won from Baghpat by 1,59,459 votes. This marked a significant improvement in the party’s performance as compared to the 2014 and 2019 polls when it had failed to open its account.

Subsequently, RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary, a Rajya Sabha member, was inducted into the Narendra Modi-led NDA government 3.0 as the Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship and MoS for Education.

Now, the RLD is looking to expand its base to other parts of UP.

Speaking about the party’s plans, RLD national secretary Anupam Mishra says: “The party’s expansion is being done under the leadership of our leader Jayant Chaudhary. We have named it the ‘Look East’ policy. We have already inducted some leaders with this expansion in mind.”

Mishra says that Bahraich, Gonda, Shravasti, Deoria, Gorakhpur, Ballia, Ghazipur and Faizabad — which are in eastern and central UP — are the first districts the party is targeting as part of its plan.

Mishra says the party will be looking at specific caste groups as it looks to grow. “The AJGR (Ahir, Jat, Gurjar, and Rajput) formula conceptualised by party founder Chaudhary Charan Singh is being revived with a little modification. We are going to make it the D-MAJGR (Dalit, Muslim, Ahir, Jaat, Gurjar, and Rajput) formula. This concept will include more castes and we will follow the concept of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” he says.

This would be be an ambitious move for the party which has so far mainly contested in seats in the western UP region.

In the 2019 polls, when the party first formed an alliance with the SP, it was given Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, and Mathura seats in west UP. Then, in the 2022 Assembly elections, the SP allotted the RLD 33 seats, all of which are located in west UP. Of these, the RLD won eight.

In March this year, when Jayant decided to switch to the NDA following differences with SP president Akhilesh Yadav, he accused the SP of “bullying” the party. The SP hit back, saying that the RLD had won the eight seats in the Assembly polls because of its backing.

The RLD’s move to cross over to the NDA yielded immediate dividends, with the party’s Purkazi MLA Anil Kumar then inducted into the Yogi Adityanath-led UP government as a minister.

It is another matter that the RLD’s expansion bid now has raised some eyebrows within the BJP. A state BJP leader said, “It is good that the RLD is working to strengthen its cadre in the state, but it should be mindful that it does not challenge its ally in an area where the latter is already strong.”

Another BJP leader said that it will be hard for the RLD to expand in eastern UP considering “it has no base there”. “It is not easy to build a party in a region where the party does not have any core vote bank. The RLD’s core vote bank of Jaats and Gurjars have very little representation in eastern and central UP,” said the leader.

However, following its move to join the NDA fold, the RLD seems to be facing a decline in Muslim support for the party. Anupam Mishra, however, claims, “It is not an issue. Since we joined hands with the BJP, not a single Muslim leader has left the party. Also, we are considering giving the Meerapur Assembly seat to a Muslim leader in the upcoming bypolls.” He adds that “I don’t think our alliance with BJP will have any impact on the Muslim community’s support for us.”