UP Election 2022: Can Akhilesh Yadav-Jayant Chaudhry alliance breach the BJP fort?

Can the photos of Akhilesh and Jayant joining hands change the UP 2022 picture?

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and RLD president Jayant Chaudhry tweeted pictures after meeting in Lucknow confirming the SP-RLD alliance for the Uttar Pradesh polls.

How significant is this alliance?

Can UP ke ladke breach the saffron fort of Western UP?

What does RLD bring to the table for Akhilesh given that the party has been a political floater all along?

The answer may lie in simple caste calculus:

• UP has 10% Yadav vote, which seen as SP's core base.
• Add to that 4% Jat votes, primarily concentrated in West, whoch is RLD's stronghold.
• And then 19% Muslims, which both the SP and RLD hope will go with the alliance.
• That makes it a formidable 33% votes in the state.

But RLD, which has been a regional powerhouse in Western UP since the time of former PM and Jayant's grandfather, Chaudhry Charan Singh, has been on a steady decline since the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

First a look at RLD's Assembly polls performance in the last few elections.

RLD has allied with different parties in different polls.

• In 2002, the party fought in alliance with the BJP and reaped a good harvest of 14 seats
• In 2007, RLD contested alone and emerged victorious on 10 seats
• In 2012, the party held Congress hand and romped home in 9 seats
• But the party's stock tumbled majorly in 2017 when it fought alone and could only win 1 seat. That lone MLA also later defected to the BJP

2014 Lok Sabha elections saw Jayant and his father, the late Ajit Singh, lose in Mathura and Baghpat respectively. They also lost in the 2019 parliamentary elections.

Does RLD have a scope for revival in the upcoming polls.

The farmers agitation, which is primarily concentrated in Wester UP, has given Jayant Chaudhry an opportunity to write his party's phoenix act.

Just flashback to that chilly January night when farm leader Rakesh Tikait broke down after UP Police action on protesting farmers.

Then RLD chief and Jayant's father the late Ajit Singh was the first political leader to call Tikait that very night and pledge total support to the farmers.

Since then, Jayant Chaudhry has held numerous and massive rallies across Western UP in support of thr farmers.

In farm agitation, Jayant also sees the opportunity to revive the Jat-Muslim alliance cultivated by his grandfather Chaudhry Charan Singh. 2013 saw the famed Western UP alliance go up in tatters as the BJP successfully polarised the region to reap rich political harvest.

RLD's poll campaign is firmly centred on farm issues and Jat-Muslim bhaichara this time around and therein lies hope for the regional party.

And a promise for Akhilesh, who now has an ally in East in OP Rajbhar and Jayant in the West.