The one-time ally is slowly but surely drifting away from the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) towards the Congress.
Lucknow: From a friendly partner in power, Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh is fast proving to be a thorn in the side for UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav. The one-time ally is slowly but surely drifting away from the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) towards the Congress.
As the state elections draw near, the RLD is clearly posturing itself to cash in on the anti-establishment sentiment, particularly in west UP, the party’s bastion. RLD leaders have begun to speak out openly against the Mulayam regime.
Matters seem to be coming to a head with the RLD set to organise demonstrations against the state government at all district headquarters on August 7.
“Our opposition is issue-based, and should not be linked to our support to the Mulayam government,” state RLD president Ram Asrey Verma told DNA. The RLD has 15 MLAs.
Three each are Cabinet Ministers and Ministers of State while two head state corporations with MoS rank.
Ajit Singh surprised many political pundits recently when he spoke out against Mulayam on the Dadri land issue. He supported ex-PM VP Singh’s agitation against the Mulayam government for allegedly giving away over 2,500 acres of land in Dadri (Ghaziabad) at a meagre price to Anil Ambani’s Reliance Energy for a power project.
It is indeed ironical that the Raja of Manda is back once again to haunt the destinies of the Jat leader and the Yadav chieftain. In 1989, it was at a nod from VP Singh, then Prime Minister, that Mulayam Singh had pipped Ajit Singh to the UP Chief Minister’s throne.
Ajit Singh has now announced a full-fledged agitation against the Mulayam government’s policy of allegedly “gifting” farmers’ valuable land to industrialists.
At RLD public meetings, the Jat leader has also been lashing out against the “deterioration” in the law and order in UP. Besides, the two leaders have also been crossing swords over “Harit Pradesh”, an election promise for a separate state comprising 22 districts of west UP, which Ajit Singh has been trumpeting for several years.
Mulayam has never supported the idea, and has criticized it in the Vidhan Sabha on a number of occasions.
However, that has not stopped the RLD from organising ‘Harit Pradesh nirmaan rallies” in west UP. A senior RLD leader said the party may part ways with the SP as soon as the state elections are announced.
“But why shouldn’t we enjoy the fruits of power till then,” he quipped. There are also reports that the RLD could join the UPA government at the Centre. The RLD has three MPs in the Lok Sabha and one in the Rajya Sabha.
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