With reports indicating that the RLD has failed to consolidate Jat vote-bank in favour of the alliance with the Congress in the sixth phase, for which polling was held on Tuesday, the party leadership is apparently worried about the poll outcome. The RLD and BSP camps indicated that the Jat vote-base has split in big ways in western Uttar Pradesh.
“We are hearing reports that Jats have voted for different parties. However, we are hopeful that the RLD will hold on to its current strength even if there is no remarkable increase in our tally,” said an RLD functionary.
The ground reports trickling into party camps indicate that the Jats have voted for their community candidates fielded by different parties, while the constituencies where there were no strong Jat candidates they voted for the BSP, BJP and even the Samajwadi Party.
The BSP leaders maintain that the party’s Jat candidates in Modinagar, Sardhana (Mathura), Shyamli, Chaprouli (Baghpat), Anupshahar (Saharanpur), Chata (Mathura) have been able to get the support of the Jat voters. The reports also suggested that the Jats have voted for the SP in Barot and BJP in Bulandshahar in favour of non-Jat candidates. The party circles are also abuzz that Jats have voted for the BSP in Thanabhavan in Prabudhnagar district for non-Jat candidate, while splitting between the BJP and the BSP in Bhudana in Muzaffarnagar district. In the Kairana Assembly seat, the Jats have reportedly rooted for the BSP candidate, while backing the SP in the Baghpat Assembly seat.
Even though the Jats were seen to have split and not backed the RLD-Congress en-block as expected, party circles noted that there had been lowest voter turnout in Jat-dominated areas despite the sixth phase recorded overall 60.01 per cent polling.
If the reports of Jats having split in big ways were to be true, it would justify the critics within the Congress for having struck an alliance with the RLD despite earlier doubts on its ability to transfer its vote base to other parties.