New Delhi: The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) led by federal civil aviation minister Ajit Singh is a curious case of a party that has fallen from grace and faces a real threat of getting completely wiped out.
Singh was supposed to have inherited the legacy of his legendary father and former prime minister Chaudhary Charan Singh.
The fellow Jat voters of western Uttar Pradesh did not look beyond him for a leader, particularly since he gave voice to their demand for a separate Harit Pradesh state.
However, his constant flip-flops have left him an object of at the most sympathy.
The RLD was with the Samajwadi Party in 2004 and contested and won five seats as an ally of the BJP. However, Singh was the first to come to the rescue of the Congress party-led government at the centre when two allies, Trinamool Congress and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) quit the ruling coalition.
Now, the RLD is contesting just eight seats as a junior partner of the Congress party and, as his fellow Jats of western Uttar Pradesh told this correspondent during his recent visit to the state, at the most Singh alone is likely to emerge victorious from his traditional Baghpat seat, though his parliamentarian son Jayant Chaudhary is seeking re-election from Mathura seat. Elsewhere, the party has roped in two former Samajwadi Party leaders Amar Singh and incumbent Samajwadi Party MP Jayapradha who are contesting the Fatehpur Sikri and Bijnore seats as RLD nominees.
Besides changing partners every election, Singh committed the blunder of ignoring fellow Jats while visiting just the Muslim riot victims, pushing his fellow Jat voters into the arms of the BJP, which rightly or wrongly stood up for the Jats.
