Lucknow: Union minister and RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary, an ally of the BJP, is set to hit the poll terrain of politically crucial west UP region by holding a rally in Siwalkhas assembly seat of Meerut on Saturday.This will be his first solo rally in the run-up to the high-stakes assembly elections due early next year. Jayant last held a joint rally with chief minister Yogi Adityanath in Muzaffarnagar on Apr 13.Sources said that the he is expected to highlight the recent measures undertaken by the NDA govt, including the move to bring in the 131st Constitutional Amendment Bill advancing women’s reservation in Lok Sabha and state legislatures in 2029.Having a sizable number of Muslim voters, Siwalkhas is currently represented by RLD’s Ghulam Mohammad, the second Muslim MLA of RLD after Ashraf Ali Khan of Thana Bhawan in Shamli.RLD sources said that the party functionaries have been asked to ensure maximum attendance of people from the Muslim community at the rally venue, Ikdi village.The move marks Jayant’s fresh bid to consolidate electorally significant Muslim voters, more than two years after he snapped ties with Samajwadi Party and joined the BJP-led NDA just before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.RLD state general secretary (minority wing) Aatir Rizvi affirmed that the rally aims to bring all sections of people, including Muslims, closer to the party ahead of the state polls.RLD’s fresh outreach, analysts said, suggested at least three-layered objectives. One, reassuring Muslim voters that the RLD still represented their interests despite being in the NDA. Two, preventing consolidation of Muslim votes behind SP and its ally Congress, and three, positioning RLD as a “bridge party” capable of negotiating space within a BJP-led coalition.The rally is scheduled to be attended by senior party functionary KC Tyagi, who recently quit JD(U) and joined the RLD. Tyagi has a long association with Meerut, from where he contested the Lok Sabha elections in 2004 but lost.Siwalkhas is not just another constituency. It has historically mirrored the broader political mood of UP. Its track record of backing the eventual winning party between 2007 and 2017 gave it a “bellwether” status. In 2007 (when BSP formed the govt), the seat was represented by Vinod Kumar Harit of BSP. Likewise, the seat was represented by Ghulam Mohammad of SP in 2012 when Akhilesh formed the govt. In 2017, eventually, the seat was won by Jitendra Pal Singh of BJP.In 2022, however, the seat was won by Ghulam Mohammad, who contested as a candidate of RLD, then an ally of SP. The alliance propelled RLD, which saw its vote share rising from 19.84% in 2017 to 43.45% in Siwalkhas in the 2022 assembly elections.The RLD president, experts said, nevertheless, has been facing the challenge of retaining RLD’s core support base, particularly among Muslims and sections of Jats, while aligning with a coalition often perceived as electorally polarizing.Jayant’s solo rally, not surprisingly, indicates Jayant’s pointed attempt to assert independent political identity within the alliance framework. Analysts said that the move also signaled RLD’s intention to be seen not merely as a junior partner, but as a vote mobilizer with its own social base.
