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How BJP chose its first Jat chief in Uttar Pradesh
A popular political theory is that the decision has been forced to limit the threat that the Samajwadi Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal (SP-RLD) alliance posed to the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha and 2022 U.P. assembly polls in the Jat belt
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) decision to pick panchayati raj minister Bhupendra Chaudhary as its first state chief from the Jat community reveals its west U.P. focus.
The move comes despite the party overcoming the Jat farmers’ challenge in the western region in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.
Three days before the BJP made its decision public, Union minister of state for home Ajay Kumar Mishra Teni had purportedly made a remark allegedly directed at farmer leader Rakesh Tikait, a Jat, who was at the forefront of the farmers’ agitation. This development also seemed to have played a part in tilting the decision in the favour of a Jat, some political experts said.
The above theory rests on the premise that by appointing a Jat state chief ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP has tried to assuage the other backward classes (OBC) community and deviated from a decade-old practice of having gone into the Lok Sabha polls with a Brahmin state chief (2009, 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls).
A more popular political theory is that the decision has been forced to limit the threat that the Samajwadi Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal (SP-RLD) alliance posed to the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha and 2022 U.P. assembly polls in the Jat belt.
Political experts recall how Union home minister Amit Shah, during the 2022 U.P. polls, tried to reach out to the RLD, despite the fact that the party had already sealed a pact with the SP.
Statistics support this view.
Of the 16 seats that BJP lost in U.P. in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, seven were from the west U.P. belt, including all six seats in Moradabad division. Chaudhary hails from Moradabad, a region where the party is now hoping to galvanise the Jats.
In 2022 U.P. assembly polls, despite the BJP’s overall impressive win, the SP-RLD alliance made a big impression in the Jat belt, bagging 17 of the 27 seats in the Moradabad division against BJP’s 10 and 9 out of 16 seats in the Saharanpur region.
“It can’t be denied that by nominating RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary to the Rajya Sabha on its quota, the Samajwadi Party has ensured that its alliance with the Jat dominated (Rashtriya) Lok Dal will continue in 2024 Lok Sabha polls, too. Despite the BJP sweep, the alliance has done well and perhaps through its new state chief who hails from the community, the BJP will now look to edge closer to this key community, whose strategic spread in west U.P. makes it a potent force,” said Athar Siddiqui of the Centre for Objective Research and Development.
Chaudhary, a leader with a Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) background, hasn’t won any election so far and is into his second term as a nominated lawmaker to the upper house of the state legislature.
He has the reputation of being an organisational man and through his nomination, the BJP has also sent out a message to neighbouring Haryana.
Chaudhary is the third Jat state chief after OP Dhankar (Haryana) and Satish Poonia (Rajasthan) and his amiable nature is expected to be handy in playing a balancing role between “satta aur sangathan (government and organisation).”
“When the party wanted him to contest against SP veteran Mulayam Singh Yadav, he did despite being aware of the result. Then, during the farmers’ agitation, he again was at the forefront, helping the party tide over a tricky situation and as a minister his stint saw maximum toilets being constructed in rural areas as part of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s swachh Bharat mission,” a BJP leader said.
