E-Paper
BJP says doors open for Jayant Chaudhary, RLD chief cites farmers' kin in response
Delhi BJP MP Parvesh Verma said Jayant Chaudhary has chosen the wrong path (allying with the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party) and people of the Jat community will speak to him.
Doors of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are always open for Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Jayant Chaudhary, said party MP Parvesh Verma after a meeting of Jat leaders from poll-bound Uttar Pradesh with Union home minister Amit Shah.
Verma said Chaudhary has chosen the wrong path (by allying with the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party) and people of the Jat community will speak to him.
Quoting Shah, the Delhi MP said, “There are many possibilities after the polls. For now, he has chosen a party. BJP's doors are always open for him.”
Hours later, Chaudhary shared a tweet in Hindi that read, "Invite those 700 farmer families that you have destroyed, not me." Chaudhary is the grandson of former prime minister Charan Singh.
The BJP meeting held at Verma's residence in Delhi was also attended by the party's prominent Jat leaders, including Union minister Sanjeev Balyan, who is an MP from Muzaffarnagar in western Uttar Pradesh.
Jats are a deciding factor in almost all the seats in this region western Uttar Pradesh, a region where the RLD enjoys influence among the community.
An attendee at the meeting said members of the community have demanded Bharat Ratna for former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh, reservation Jats and proportionate representation in Central and Uttar Pradesh governments. The home minister has responded positively, he added.
An earlier report by the Hindustan Times had said the RLD-Samajwadi Party alliance will help in redefining political equations following the communal riots of Muzaffarnagar in September 2013 that had led to a Muslim-Jat divide on RLD’s homeground. At present, the BJP is in power in 51 out of 71 constituencies in 14 districts of Meerut, Saharanpur and Moradabad divisions.
