First phase of UP polls to decide future of RLD's Jayant Chaudhary, nine BJP ministers

The first phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls on 58 seats in the 'Jat' dominated western region on Thursday would decide the political future of Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) leader Jayant Chaudhary, who has joined hands with the Samajwadi Party (SP), as well as fate of nine ministers of the Yogi Adityanath Cabinet.

In the 2017 assembly polls, the BJP had swept the region winning 53 assembly seats riding on the overwhelming support of the 'jats', the upper castes and non-Yadav OBCs and division in the Muslim votes.

The situation in the region has changed in the past few months, especially in view of a perceptible anger among the farmers following the farmer agitation in protest against the now scrapped farm laws, non-payment of sugarcane dues and efforts by the RLD to bring the jats and Muslims, who once formed its core vote bank, together.

Read | Hindu pride and Muslim fears overshadow UP Assembly polls

RLD, which had managed to win only one seat in the 2017 assembly polls, has emerged as a formidable challenger to the BJP riding on the renewed support from the Jat community. A good performance would help Jayant, who was not contesting the polls, take the place of his father and former Union minister Ajit Singh.

The Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU), which had spearheaded the farmer agitation in the region, had been working silently among the farmers and other communities to persuade the electorate to oppose the saffron party, which, it said, had termed the protesting farmers as ''khalistanis, Pakistanis and even terrorists''. For the record, however, the BKU has said that it has not appealed to the people to support or oppose any particular party.

Apparently sensing the possible backlash, BJP leaders, including Union home minister Amit Shah and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had gone all out to polarise the polls along religious lines by repeatedly raking up the 2013 Muzaffarnagar communal riots, in which 63 people were killed and thousands were displaced, and the alleged migration of Hindu families from Kairana in Shamli district after threats from Muslims.

Incidentally, at many places, the BJP candidates had to face the protests of the people. Some candidates were even chased away by the electorate in certain villages.

SP president Akhilesh Yadav and RLD leader Jayant Chaudhary, who hailed from the Jat community, however, refrained from reacting to the BJP leaders' "communal" campaign and instead chose to focus on the issues concerning the farmers besides, unemployment and rising prices.

As the Congress, which has put up its candidates on all the seats in the region, remains a fringe player in the contest, all eyes will be on the BSP, which has fielded a large number of Muslim candidates in the hope of getting their support along with its core vote bank of the dalits.

Political analysts opine that the SP-RLD alliance's efforts to dislodge the BJP from the region may not succeed if the BSP manages to make a dent into the Muslim vote bank. On the other hand, a consolidation of Jat-Muslim vote in favour of the alliance could hurt the BJP's prospects in the region.

Several prominent BJP ministers, including Suresh Rana, Atul Garg, Shrikant Sharma, Kapil Dev Agarwal and Sandeep Singh, were in the fray in the first phase. The districts going to the polls on Thursday include Agra, Mathura, Aligarh, Ghaziabad, Baghpat, Shamli, Meerut and Bulandshahar among others.

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