Lucknow: In a curious move, Jayant Chaudhary-led Rashtriya Lok Dal has initiated backchannel talks with ally BJP for contesting from Meerut’s Sardhana seat in the UP Assembly elections.The development comes in the midst of the feud between BJP’s former Sardhana MLA Sangeet Som and its former Muzaffarabad MP Sanjeev Balyan over political supremacy in the west UP region.The rift started after Som, a Thakur, blamed Balyan, a Jat, for his defeat in Sardhana in the 2022 Assembly elections. Som had accused Balyan, who was the then BJP MP from Muzaffarnagar, of failing to garner Jat votes in his favour. Som had lost to SP’s Atul Pradhan, a Gujjar.Balyan later accused Som of helping SP’s Harendra Malik who defeated Balyan in Muzaffarnagar in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Sardhana comes under Muzaffarnagar LS constituency.Tensions escalated earlier this week after Balyan, during the unveiling of a statue of 18th-century Jat ruler Maharaja Surajmal in Sardhana, said that he had not forgotten the ‘humiliation’ (of 2024 defeat) and vowed to ‘exact revenge with interest’. While Balyan did not name anyone, his remarks were seen as directed towards Som.A senior RLD functionary confirmed the party is in talks with BJP for at least three seats from Meerut, including Sardhana. The other two seats are Siwalkhas and Kithore. BJP had lost all three seats in the 2022 Assembly elections when RLD was an ally of the Samajwadi Party. Siwalkhas was won by RLD’s Ghulam Mohammad and Kithore by SP’s Shahid Manzoor.Sardhana, which Som lost to Pradhan by around 18,000 votes, has a sizeable concentration of Jats, Gujjars and Thakurs spread over three blocks — Daurala, Mawana and Sardhana. Sources said giving Sardhana to RLD may help the BJP in effecting a possible thaw between Balyan and Som as well as their supporters.Analysts said the Som-Balyan rivalry threatens to turn into a structural problem for the BJP in the west UP region. “By allowing RLD to step into Sardhana, BJP may give a safe exit to both leaders,” an analyst said. RLD sources said Sardhana is not just another seat, it’s in the heart of its traditional Jat belt.After allying with the BJP-led NDA ahead of 2024 LS elections, RLD has faced the challenge of retaining its Jat vote bank while adapting to a broader coalition framework of the saffron pantheon. RLD, at the same time, has been signalling its intent of reclaiming ground it once ceded during its alliance with the SP.
