You can read the part 1 here
No one was talking of BJP in the western UP from start. In fact, political commentators have projected great loss for BJP on western seats owing to farmers movement. Videos are viral of campaigning BJP leaders that are forced to flee villages in many areas. Despite all these initial favourable circumstances for opposition alliance, Amit Shah hopped on to the centre stage from nowhere and raised the political temperature.
After a prolonged spell of showers, cold wave and fog the political weather in Uttar Pradesh has now come to an instant boil with newfound fissures and old fault lines revived.
4. Discontent over ticket distribution by SP
The exodus that started a couple of weeks back from other parties to Samajwadi Party (SP) had resulted in major incongruencies in the ticket distribution. This had led to anger and dissatisfaction among Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) members i.e., Jaat community, special case being the Siwalkhas assembly constituency in Meerut where a senior Jaat leader Rajkumar Sangwan was denied ticket and Ghulam Mohammed was fielded on SP ticket. This sparked anger in the Jaat community. Jaat Mahasabha announced that it will not vote for Muslim candidates fielded by SP. This in turn generated reaction among Muslims who started campaigning against Jaat candidates fielded by RLD.
In Meerut's Siwalkhas, discontent over seat distribution is evident. People were backing their local RLD leaders but ticket was given to an SP leader. The RLD leaders had support across caste lines but now the area stands divided as people feel they were let down. pic.twitter.com/eYzcP8tvEd
— Amil Bhatnagar (@AmilwithanL) January 21, 2022
Muslims were already disgruntled on ticket distribution in Muzaffarnagar. Muzaffarnagar district has 41 percent Muslim population but SP-RLD has not fielded a single Muslim candidate in its six assembly constituencies. A common sense has uncommonly prevailed here in so called secular parties that fielding Muslim candidates would split Muslim votes. This apprehension may be termed as grounded since Mayawati’s BSP and Owaisi’s AIMIM have already fielded Muslim candidates on many seats. But RLD and SP did not apprehend the larger fallout of their strategy.
It seemed that ‘unfair’ ticket distribution in opposition alliance was just an excuse for larger socio-political assertion that essentially stems out of political representation in a demography where Hindu Jaats and Muslims have comparable size. Here Shah has sensed an opportunity.
Shah kicked off BJP’s electoral campaign from Kairana on January 23rd where he resorted to the old rant of Hindu migration. Then he tried to outreach Hindu Jaat community by referring to a common enemy “Mughals” against which “BJP and Jaats are fighting for last 650 years”! On the Republic Day he met some Jaat leaders in Delhi and assured them of a Bharat Ratna to Chaudhary Charan Singh. Finally, he extended an olive branch to RLD for formal support but he was outrightly snubbed by Chaudhary.
I don't take his (Amit Shah) invitation seriously. Western UP is not all about Jats. They're trying to create a further division. They don't talk about real issues but talk of 80-20 percent, Jinnah, Aurangzeb. We've taken a decision & will stand by it: RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary pic.twitter.com/5k1gm686jY
— ANI UP/Uttarakhand (@ANINewsUP) January 28, 2022
A political party having a life of around forty years referring to its history of 650 years might create much humour on twitter but the point did not go unnoticed with opposition and media. Shah’s overtures forced RLD and SP to show their joint strength.
January 28th, Friday witnessed a political drama when Akhilesh Yadav and Jayant Chaudhary were scheduled to hold a joint press conference in Muzaffarnagar and Meerut. On the other hand, Yogi Adityanath had also announced a door-to-door campaign from Kankarkheda, Meerut. His program was decided on the previous night in a hurry to counter SP-RLD cementing efforts. Akhilesh reached Delhi but could not reach Muzaffarnagar on time where he was scheduled to hold a presser with Jayant at 1.00 p.m. He alleged BJP of holding back his helicopter.
मेरे हैलिकॉप्टर को अभी भी बिना किसी कारण बताए दिल्ली में रोककर रखा गया है और मुज़फ़्फ़रनगर नहीं जाने दिया जा रहा है। जबकि भाजपा के एक शीर्ष नेता अभी यहाँ से उड़े हैं। हारती हुई भाजपा की ये हताशा भरी साज़िश है।
जनता सब समझ रही है… pic.twitter.com/PFxawi0kFD
— Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) January 28, 2022
