A leader close to Choudhary said the party was eyeing Dalit support in western Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan and would focus on social justice through agitations and possibly organizational changes. In western UP, it will also consider winning over some backward castes like Prajapati and Saini.
RLD chief Jayant Singh along with Azad Samaj Party chief Chandrashekhar Azad on Sunday went to Pali in Rajasthan to meet the family of a Dalit youth, Jitendra Meghwal, who was stabbed to death. He gave a memorandum to Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot demanding financial assistance, government jobs and a house for his family. He also demanded fast-tracking of cases related to atrocities against Scheduled Castes, to fill up the vacancies in bodies like the Scheduled Castes Commission at the earliest. Earlier this month, Singh met Azad and, in a post on Twitter, described the discussions as “broadening” from “youth empowerment to social justice”. Dalits make up about 18% of Rajasthan’s population, while Jats – the RLD’s traditional support base – form about 12% in the state.
In western UP, even though its performance was not very impressive (winning 8 out of 33 seats), the party which did not get any seats in the 2019 general elections and only one in the 2017 assembly elections, got a new lease of life. have been found. This time. This comes against the backdrop of a sharp decline in the strength of the BSP in the state. Constituting about 2% of UP’s population, Jats are concentrated in 26 districts in western UP, where their share is as high as 15-20% of the population. However, the current elections in UP have shown that most of the Jats are with the BJP, hence the need for expansion of the RLD here. Dalits, on the other hand, constitute almost five times more than Jats in this region.
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