On Charan Singh’s turf Baghpat, RLD and BJP turn ticket to a non-family member into a plus | Political Pulse News
For the first time since 1977, or in nearly 50 years, the Baghpat Lok Sabha seat does not have a candidate from Chaudhary Charan Singh’s family. But, contrary to expectations, it is turning out to be advantageous for the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD).
RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary, who lost from Baghpat in 2019 and was expected to contest again, fielded instead Rajkumar Sangwan, 66. The retired professor who holds a PhD in history was an inspired choice, having been a close associate of Charan Singh since the start of the former prime minister’s political journey, who had never got a ticket from the RLD. The BJP, the RLD’s new ally, built upon it to draw a comparison with the Opposition’s “dynasty politics” — particularly as arrayed at that end are five family members of Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav alone.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath held two election meetings in Baghpat, on April 19 and 23, where he stressed this point, to attack both the Congress and SP. At both the rallies, the CM said: “This is the difference between the SP, Congress and RLD. When the SP chief was distributing tickets for the general elections, he fielded his entire family from different Lok Sabha constituencies. The Congress is no different. But I want to congratulate Jayant ji that he has fielded an avowed party worker from where his grandfather and ‘Bharat Ratna’ Chaudhary Saheb and his father Ajit Singh used to win.”
Despite Baghpat being Charan Singh’s turf, the RLD suffered defeat at the hands of the BJP last two times. With the BJP and RLD now on the same side, the going seems easy for Sangwan.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Sangwan says: “I will live and die for the RLD.” Recounting his journey in the party, from a grass-roots worker to RLD national general secretary and now its Baghpat candidate, he says: “In 1977, I distributed pamphlets and badges in the first election my mentor Chaudhary Saheb contested from Baghpat. Time went by and I sought support for Ajit Singh and then for Jayant in 2019.”
Rampal Dhama, the RLD’s Baghpat unit chief, says the ticket to Sangwan left them all surprised. “We were expecting that either Jayant ji or his wife Charu Chaudhary will contest from Baghpat. We are pleased that someone from among us like Sangwan ji is our candidate for the prestigious seat.”
Located at the heart of the Jat-Muslim belt in west UP, the Baghpat seat was won by Charan Singh in the post-Emergency 1977 polls as a candidate of the Bharatiya Lok Dal (BLD), a party founded by him which was part of the anti-Congress front. He repeated his feat in 1980 and again in 1984, despite the Congress wave in those Lok Sabha elections in the wake of Indira Gandhi’s assassination.
From 1989 onwards, Ajit Singh won from Baghpat six times, with the exception being 1998 when the BJP’s Sompal Shastri defeated him. The run of Ajit Singh, who dabbled with both the Congress and BJP and held posts at the Centre, ended finally with the Modi wave in 2014, when former Mumbai police chief and BJP candidate Satya Pal Singh defeated him by a massive margin of over two lakh votes. In 2019, Singh beat Jayant, by 23,502 votes, to retain Baghpat.
The Samajwadi Party has fielded Amarpal Sharma in alliance with the Congress this time, while the BSP has fielded Praveen Bainsla, a Jat like the RLD candidate.
While Bainsla may take away some Jat vote, Dhama says: “With the RLD and BJP together, the Baghpat results will be spectacular.” He adds that they don’t fear losing the Muslim vote – around 25% in the seat – as the community has always voted for the party of Charan Singh. The Jats, the RLD’s primary vote bank, dominate Baghpat overwhelmingly at 70% of the voters.
One of the RLD’s slogans was: “Rajkumar Sangwan aaya hai, jaat-paat chod jisne sada bhaichara apnaya hai (Sangwan is here, the one who has put caste differences behind to embrace brotherhood).”
The RLD and BJP also emphasised they were tied together by the same bond of brotherhood. A slogan heard at their rallies in the campaign, repeated by Adityanath, was: “Chalega nal toh khilega kamal (If the hand pump works, the lotus will bloom).” While the hand pump is the RLD’s symbol, lotus is the BJP’s.
While the RLD-BJP tie-up saw some disquiet in the west UP seats that voted in the first phase, and where the farmer agitation over the Centre’s agricultural laws drew support, in Baghpat – the home ground of one of India’s foremost farmer leaders – there are no such concerns.
Yashpal Chaudhary, a wealthy farmer belonging to Izraul village of Baghpat, talks about how the sugarcane dues owed by the local Malakpur Sugar Mills for one year were cleared “with a few days to go for the elections”. “Now, the schedule set by the Adityanath government for payment of cane dues, within two weeks of delivery, is being followed,” Yashpal says, though adding that it is to be seen if this will continue after the polls are over.
