Muslim, Jat...
He campaigned against Narendra Modi’s failure to deliver on his promise; the injustice meted out to his grandfather, the former PM, Chaudhary Charan Singh, considered a political legend by Jats; and played on pride.
He told Jats to recognise their own, and the party’s unofficial slogan was ‘instead of becoming the BJP’S poonch (tail), it is better to become the RLD’S moonch (pride)’.
The reversal
The Kairana elections were happening soon after the Gorakhpur and Phulpur bypolls in which the SP, backed by the BSP, managed to defeat the BJP.
After careful negotiations, the RLD joined this broad coalition. Its candidate was to be Tabassum Hasan, who was a leader of the SP till her candidature was announced. The BSP, sticking to the tradition of not fighting by-polls, would not put up a candidate. While Mayawati stayed away from making an explicit call to back the RLD, it was understood her support was to the antibjp candidate. The Congress refrained from putting up a candidate, after losing its deposit in both the earlier by-polls.
So here was the new experiment. If the BJP had Mriganka Singh — the daughter of the deceased MP, Hukum Singh — banking on the sympathy factor and the broad Hindu consolidation, on the other side, was the Jat-led party putting up a Muslim candidate, supported by all other formations.
Jayant Chaudhary led the campaign.
He was aware that the biggest risk for him was the BJP converting it into a ‘Hindu-muslim’ election. When asked if putting up a Muslim candidate was a risk, he said:“it is time to bite the bullet. How long will we play on their turf?”
But the shadow of 2013 had not completely dissipated. Chaudhary and the RLD did not bring Hasan — the Muslim candidate — to the Jat areas and told Jats they must support the RLD as it was their party; that the BJP had betrayed them; and that they must vote for the RLD in memory of‘chaudhary saheb’, a reference to Charan Singh. They raised livelihood concerns and Chaudhary spoke of how a search for Kairana on Google threw up