The changing colours of symbols and flag positions during an election tell a story. At the Rashtriya Lok Dal head office near the bustling Mahavir Chowk in Muzaffarnagar, the party’s green and white flag is flying above the Bharatiya Janata Party’s flag. At the recent road show of RLD chief Chaudhary Jayant Singh and the BJP candidate Sanjeev Balyan, the saffron party’s lotus symbol took on the unusual shades of green and white.
It appears that the BJP is allowing its small but influential partner to take the lead in this critical constituency in western Uttar Pradesh that it won by a whisker in 2019, when Mr. Balyan defeated Mr. Singh’s father and the RLD’s then-supremo Ajit Singh, who was then a joint candidate of the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, by only 6,500 votes.
Ajit Singh, who worked for Hindu-Muslim unity after the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013, died of COVID in May 2021. This time round, his son is not just seeking support for Mr. Balyan, who emerged as a Hindutva leader after the riots, against the Samajwadi Party’s senior Jat leader Harinder Malik; he is also making it a prestige issue, as a sort of return gift for the BJP’s decision to bestow the Bharat Ratna on his grandfather and former Prime Minister Charan Singh.
RLD retains secular ideology
To the BJP cadre’s displeasure, however, Mr. Singh is not changing his ideological stance. Metaphorically, they see him as a vegetarian who has walked into a non-vegetarian section and is not only refusing to change his habits, but is also making a grand show of it. That may be why he got delayed and missed the PM’s Saharanpur rally. He took along hundreds of tractors for a show of strength with Mr. Balyan and then wished the crowds, ‘Id Mubarak’, making appeals for social amity. This is a playbook that the BJP worker has not been accustomed to since 2013.
Electorally, this hub of sugarcane farmers has not proved sweet for his family. Apart from Ajit Singh’s loss last year, in 1971, Charan Singh, by then a former Chief Minister of U.P., was humbled at the hustings in Muzaffarnagar by a Communist Party of India candidate with the support of the Congress.
MBCs irked
Across the street, Moolchand Kashyap is waiting for Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati to address a rally for party candidate Dara Singh Prajapati, a real estate businessman who heads the Prajapati Mahasabha, a national social organisation for the most backward classes (MBCs). “In 2019, Ajit Singh was seen as the Jat face. This time, it is Balyan who is being seen as one,” the 74-year-old said.
Pointing to the BSP stole around his neck, the retired official of a government insurance company said that this was the first time that he had worn it. “Because Behenji has given political representation to one amongst us in the area, we have realised what the BJP has been promising us is not true,” Mr. Kashyap said, referring to the BJP’s unfulfilled promise of moving 17 MBC communities to the Scheduled Caste category. “Mayawati won’t give it either but she is at least giving us political representation. After Muslims, our number (MBCs) is the highest in the constituency.”
Last month, the youth of the community were lathi-charged in Ghaziabad while they were taking out a cycle march from Haridwar to Delhi for greater political representation of the community.
A section of the community is irked by Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s description of the region as Jatland, during his rally in Shahpur. The sobriquet has pricked MBC youth who have been supporting the BJP on its Hindutva plank in order to take on the influence of erstwhile landlords which, according to them, has swelled disproportionately with the RLD and BJP joining hands. The SP’s Mr. Malik, who was outside the political reckoning for a long time, is hoping to reap this discontent among the BJP’s core voters. In his speeches, he is sidestepping emotional issues and is asking the party’s State leadership to stay away to help him keep the election local.
Missing communal narratives
Outside the BJP office, young Ankit Chaudhary, a BJP voter, had a piece of advice for the RLD chief: “If you enter a non vegetarian buffet, there is no point claiming that you are a vegetarian. People won’t believe.” What he meant was that Mr. Singh should shun the secular image and wrap himself in the Hindutva cloak.
In the race to cross the 400-seat mark, the BJP cadre seems to be missing the communal narrative that drove the central leadership’s ambition.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is doing his bit. He is carefully sprinkling Urdu words like nizam and janaza in his chaste Hindi while praising the role of the double engine government in eliminating the mafia of a particular hue. He brings in references to The Guardian report that hinted at India’s role in the mysterious deaths of anti-Indian elements in Pakistan, but it is not generating a wave of nationalism that could subsume the caste identities that are surfacing again. “It is getting predictable. Last time, the Pulwama episode changed the tone of the election at the last minute,” said Rohit Lathiyan, a young Jat leader who is confused about his political loyalty.
Mohd Lukman, an old RLD hand, chipped in. “Jal aur kul ko milne main samay nahin lagta (Water and families don’t take time to mingle),” he says, showing videos of the recent panchayat held by Mula Jats (Muslim Jats) in support of Mr. Balyan.
Localised contest
This election, local poll pundits say, is playing out as a localised contest between Mr. Balyan and Mr. Malik, despite the BJP’s top leadership holding four rallies in their candidate’s support. Seasoned local journalist Rashid Ali says that Mr. Balyan is on a sticky wicket as caste faultlines have re-emerged after a decade of communal polarisation in Muzaffarnagar.
Mr. Balyan’s critics within the party say some of it is his own doing. In a bid to become the sole leader of the Jats in the region, he played the Jat card a bit too much, and in the end, still has to transfer it to the RLD’s Mr. Singh. They feel the impact will be seen in the neighbouring Kairana and Bijnor seats as well.
Internal tussles
There are also RLD functionaries who are canvassing for Mr. Malik without resigning from their own party. They owe their allegiance to his son Pankaj Malik, who is the sitting SP MLA from Charthwal with RLD support, and believe that their own leader, Mr. Singh, will snap ties with the BJP after the polls. “He won’t defend the Agniveer scheme and bring the MSP law and he won’t have the political clout to force his way,” said Madan Singh Goliyan, a retired army man.
Two terms of anti-incumbency will also hurt Mr. Balyan, along with a Rajput community hurt by being sidelined in ticket distribution. Behind the hurt pride is an internal party tussle, where a section in the party feels that Mr. Balyan should have faced the consequences for the 2022 results when the BJP lost four of the five Assembly seats that fall within this Lok Sabha constituency. The insiders allege that Mr. Balyan contributed to the loss of his competitors within the party. Now, the party is serenading the same section of Jats and Gurjars who made that loss possible.
Mr. Balyan’s supporters are, however, certain that their leader is in the lead. They showcase the gleaming network of roads that now connect the villages to city life. “We feel that some disgruntled leaders can’t shift the whole community’s vote. We are sure that Rajputs and MBCs will eventually return to the fold on voting day after registering their anger... The fear of Muslims has not gone away in the majority community, and we are focussing on the female voters of MBC communities that the media fail to take into account,” said a senior functionary, refusing to be named.
Muslims disillusioned
The Muslims, who constitute the largest chunk of the electorate, are disillusioned that no party has shown faith in them. “Jats constitute only 1.5 lakh but they have two candidates. We are 5.5 lakhs but we are being told that we will polarise,” lamented Mohd Ayub, a former pradhan in the Charthawal area who hails from the ironsmith community among Muslims. With the RLD switching sides, the general sense is that the voting percentage might dip as Muslims are not as committed to the SP as they were in 2022; still, by and large, they will go with the SP-Congress combine.
Meanwhile, waiting for an Ambedkar Jayantiprocession to pass by, young Valmikis danced to songs of Dalit pride. The giant speakers had the BJP’s lotus symbol embossed on it, even while a young boy was cleaning the music system with a BJP flag. “The two can go together,” the boy said, making a sign to maintain silence.
