RLD regains some lost west UP base riding on farmer sentiment

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, March 10

The Rashtriya Lok Dal on Thursday bagged eight seats in western UP where the impact of the farmers’ agitation was most pronounced.

The Jayant Choudhary-led party had been reduced to just one seat in 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.

But today the RLD, benefitting from the Muslim-Jat consolidation in the wake of farm agitation, won 8 seats out of 33 it contested.

It bagged four of the six seats in Muzaffarnagar, the native district of BKP national spokesperson Rakesh Tikait, one of the leaders of the farmers’ movement. In Shamli, another district from where thousands of farmers joined their Punjab and Haryana colleagues on Delhi borders, the RLD registered victory in two of the three seats while in Bagpat it won one of the three seats.

The party also walked home with a win in Purkazi SC seat losing a close fight in Nehtaur and challenging the results in Baraut.

The results reveal Jat-Muslim unity behind SP-RLD candidates in the sensitive western UP belt where the BJP’s own assessment was it would lose around 37 seats although it lost much lesser.

SP-RLD candidate Ghulam Mohammad won Siwal Khas against BJP’s Jat candidate.

Among prominent BJP losers in the west UP region are minister Suresh Rana, defeated by RLD in Thana Bhawan; BJP MLA Umesh Malik defeated in Budhana; and firebrand saffron lawmaker Sangeet Som, who was in news during the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, defeated by SP candidate Atul Pradhan in Sardhana seat of Meerut.

The RLD also won Sadabad seat in Hathras, where the Opposition had backed the family of a Scheduled Caste sexual assault victim.

However, the overall results show that the entire Jat vote did not consolidate behind the SP and RLD in the area and was divided.

The RLD bagged a higher vote share in UP polls — 2.93 pc as against 2.67 pc of the Congress.

Owaisi’s AIMIM finishes behind NOTA

The Asadudin Owaisi led AIMIM today managed only 0.43 pc of the votes in UP, finishing behind NOTA at 0.69 pc.