SP, RLD announce tie-up, vow ‘sunset’ for BJP in UP elections
MEERUT: The Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RLD) on Tuesday announced an alliance for assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh early next year, holding a big rally in the politically crucial western region of India’s most populous state.
The two parties vowed to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is hoping to secure a second straight term, and courted farmers who spent a year protesting three central laws that have now been repealed.
“This time there would be sunset of the BJP forever in western Uttar Pradesh,” SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said in Dabathua village of Meerut district. “Kisanon ka inquilab hoga, 2022 me badlav hoga (There will be revolution by farmers and change in 2022),” he added.
RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary said if the alliance came to power, it will build a memorial for “martyrs” of the year-long farm protest. He also attacked the BJP government for the recent leak of a government competitive examination question paper and subsequent cancellation of the test.
“The BJP will get a befitting reply from the people in the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls next year as they have understood its politics of hatred. The BJP talks of hatred and our babaji (a reference to chief minister Yogi Adityanath) starts with Aurangzeb and ends with the Kairana exodus,” he said.
During the previous assembly polls in 2017, some BJP leaders said Hindu families fled Kairana town in Shamli district after intimidation by Muslim criminals, a claim that was later challenged by the local administration and other residents.
This is the second major alliance forged by the SP, which is looking to reverse defeats in the 2017 state polls and 2019 general elections at the hands of the BJP. Last month, Yadav joined hands with the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, which has influence among sections of the other backward classes (OBCS) in eastern Uttar Pradesh.
The RLD, which has a base among the Jat and Muslim communities in 14 districts of Saharanpur, Meerut and Moradabad divisions with 71 Assembly seats, in western Uttar Pradesh, suffered reverses in the 2014, 2017 and 2019 polls, but is looking to revive itself on the back of the farm stir. In his speech Chaudhary hailed the agitation. “I appreciate farmers for winning a big battle and forcing (Prime Minister Narendra) Modiji, probably for the first time, to bow before them,” he said, referring to the repeal of three central farm laws on November 29.
“Our party had announced the construction of a memorial in Meerut, but now Akhilesh ji and I are together. The first work our double-engine government will do is to construct a memorial for martyr farmers, who died during farmers’ protest,” Chaudhary said. He accused BJP leaders of insulting cultivators.
“In Lakhimpur Kheri, farmers were crushed. Over 700 of them died during the agitation,” he said. During violence in Lakhimpur Kheri on October 3 this year, eight people died, including four farmers and two BJP workers. Yadav remembered Charan Singh, former Prime Minister and Chaudhary’s grandfather, BR Ambedkar, Ram Manohar Lohia and farm leader Mahendra Singh Tikait. “Farmers were fighting for their rights and they wanted that government should listen to them, but they were crushed under the jeep by BJP’S minister and his supporters,” he said, referring to the Lakhimpur Kheri incident.
He said farmers should be given their rights and a decision should be taken for providing them crop support prices.
Chaudhary also attacked chief minister Adityanath. “Babaji becomes angry very fast. You have never seen him smiling. He smiles only when he is with bacchde (calves). I ask you people to free him so that he can play with his calves for 24 hours. He cannot handle government files.”
Yadav said RLD and SP workers will help in strengthening harmony among the people and said the SP- RLD government will give relief in electricity bills to the poor if they formed the government.
“The joint rally of the SP-RLD was a super flop show. It is clear that the SP chief’s Jinnah talk has alienated his supporters. Nobody would want to associate with a leader who equates one who was responsible for country’s partition with someone like Sardar Patel, a great leader and a patriot who united the country. Our respected Prime Minister rightly said that ‘Lal Topis’ mean red alert,” state BJP spokesman Harish Srivastava said.