MEERUT: Ajit Singh, 80, president of the Rashtriya Lok Dal and son of former PM Chaudhary Charan Singh, had said in one of his recent speeches that the 2019 Lok Sabha polls will be his “last election”.This time, Ajit Singh will be contesting from Muzaffarnagar , leaving his Baghpat seat to his son and vice-president of RLD, Jayant Chaudhary.Ajit Singh has fought from Baghpat Lok Sabha constituency eight times and lost only twice from there. But now, after the release of seat-sharing list by SP-BSP-RLD alliance for the forthcoming polls, it is clear that RLD has got Baghpat, Mathura and Muzaffarnagar seats. By announcing to fight from Muzaffarnagar seat this time, it is clear that he is passing on his Baghpat legacy to his son, Jayant Chaudhary.According to party leaders, choosing Muzaffarnagar constituency is part of RLD’s multi-pronged strategy primarily aimed at reuniting Muslim-Jat votebank that was severed during the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots.When TOI contacted Singh, he politely refused to comment on the issue. However his party’s senior leaders revealed the plan.“Muzaffarnagar has close to 3.74 lakh Jat voters, which is around 22% of the constituency’s electorate of 16 lakh voters. Muslims constitute another 5.5 lakh voters. If we add three lakh Dalits also, then the entire vote base comes to around 75% of the total votes. Now, Muzaffarnagar borders with Baghpat which has always been an RLD stronghold. For the past two years, Chaudhary sahib (Ajit Singh) has worked overtime to bridge the division between Jats and Muslims (his traditional votebank) through ‘bhaichaara’ rallies and anything that happens in Muzaffarnagar affects Baghpat as well. So in a way he has been endeavouring to consolidate his votebank in both districts,” said Raj Kumar Sangwan, organizational secretary, RLD, UP.More than any other political party, it is a fight for survival for RLD in the sense that in both 2014 general elections and UP assembly polls, RLD bit the dust. It was not able to open its account in the former and got just one seat in the latter.The only face-saver came in the form of RLD win in 2017 Kairana bypoll where a joint candidate of SP, BSP and Congress, Tabassum Hasan, won on a RLD ticket against Mriganka Singh, daughter of BJP MP Hukum Singh whose death led to the byelection in the constituency.

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