Click to play videoBagpat (Uttar Pradesh): After two phases of polling in Uttar Pradesh, most exit polls are showing a definite lead for the Bahujan Samaj Party. Even Jats, once staunch supporters of Rashtriya Lok Dal leader Ajit Singh, are willing to vote for the BSP this time.
In the Jat heartland of Western Uttar Pradesh the axis has simply shifted the other way.
Singh has always been held as an icon largely due to his father Chaudhary Charan Singh and partly due to his long-standing demand for carving out a separate state of western UP – Harit Pradesh. But all that seems to have changed now.
“We'll only vote for our candidate, Dalit or otherwise,” says a jat voter Mangat Ram.
However, for many other Jat voters like Mahendra Singh, it’s BSP chief Mayawati who gets the thumbs up.
“We prefer BSP candidates. Mayawati has given equal preference to every caste,” says Singh.
In the second phase of UP polls, the Jats appear to have shifted their loyalties towards the BSP. In UP's caste laboratory Mayawati has turned calculations upside down by giving a majority of tickets to Jats and Gurjars.
Traditionally, Dalits and Jats have been bitter rivals but with Mayawati's new formulation that seems to have undergone a complete change.
“For us Jats mean nobody else but Ajit Singh,” says a Jat voter Pradip Singh.
In the last Assembly elections, Ajit Singh had bagged 11 seats out of 58 seats while Mayawati had even then got 15. So, the BSP leader needs to break into Ajit Singh's hold if she has to swing the elections in her way.
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