Muslim candidate, Jat party script BJP’S Kairana defeat in the shadow of 2013 riots

NEWDELHI: With the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) winning the Kairana Lok Sabha by-election in Uttar Pradesh, the politics of the region may finally be entering a postmuzaffarnagar phase.

To understand the meaning of the bypoll, it is crucial to go back five years.

As the Muzaffarnagar riots broke out in August-september 2013, there was a sense of shock in the then civil aviation minister and RLD chief Ajit Singh’s house on Tughlak Road. As Jat villagers crowded around his lawns, the feedback Singh and his son, Jayant Chaudhary, were getting suggested the challenge that lay in store for the elections in 2014. It was becoming clear that Jats would never vote with Muslims; that the RLD had not stood up for Jat ‘honour’; and that there was a surge in support for the BJP.

The riots, engendered by rumours, misunderstanding, sustained communal propaganda, and a lax administration perceived to be partisan, had generated a deep trust deficit between the communities of the region.

The subsequent results across western Uttar Pradesh reflected the mood. The RLD, a predominantly Jat party which relied on a social coalition of Jats and Muslims, was wiped out. The BJP began its resounding march in UP from the west, which is where elections were held first.

In 2017, as Chaudhary campaigned across the wide stretch of west UP, his challenge was the same: to get Jats back from the BJP to the RLD and to re-stitch a wider social coalition.

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