Uttar Pradesh: RLD Announces Lok Sabha Candidates From Bijnor And Baghpat, Here's Brief Political Background Of These Seats

Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) announced two Lok Sabha candidates and one candidate for the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council on Monday (4 March) as per its seat-sharing agreement under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

Chandan Chauhan will be contesting from Bijnor, while Dr Rajkumar Sangwan will contest from Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh. For the position of MLC, Yogesh Chaudhary has been nominated.

Bijnor seat is currently held by Bahujan Samaj Party's (BSP) Malook Nagar and has been won twice each by the RLD and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since 1999.

Chandan Chauhan is the grandson of former UP Deputy CM Chaudhary Narain Singh and is currently the RLD MLA from Meerapur, an assembly segment under Bijnor Lok Sabha seat.

His father Sanjay Singh Chauhan had won Lok Sabha elections from Bijnor in the 2009 elections. Chandan Chauhan had earlier lost the 2017 Assembly elections from Khatauli when he contested on the Samajwadi Party (SP) ticket.

Baghpat is an interesting seat for two reasons. One, despite holding this seat since 2014, the BJP has given this seat to its ally RLD. This means that the ticket of the sitting BJP MP Satya Pal Singh was cut.

Second, for the first time since 1977, someone outside the Chaudhary family will be contesting from here on the RLD ticket. Jayant Chaudhary is already a Rajya Sabha MP.

In the 2019 elections, the RLD candidate was Jayant Chaudhary and his father Ajit Singh was the RLD candidate in the 2014 elections. Both these times, BJP's Satyapal Malik won.

Prior to these losses, Ajit Singh represented Baghpat in Lok Sabha six times and his father Chaudhary Charan Singh three times. Thus, being a legacy seat, this seat was destined to go to the RLD under NDA.

The RLD candidate from here, Sangwan is the party's national secretary. 63-year-old Sangwan has been with the party for 44 years. He was hoping for a ticket from Siwalkhas during the 2022 Assembly elections.

However, with the SP-RLD alliance, this seat went to SP and he couldn't get a chance. Sangwan described getting the Lok Sabha ticket as "unimaginable" and hoped to deliver the faith that the party showed in him.

Vidhan Parishad elections are scheduled to be held on 21 March on 13 seats. The RLD candidate Yogesh Chaudhary contested the 2017 Assembly elections from Mathura's Mant, but lost to BSP by a narrow margin.

He couldn't contest the 2022 elections as this seat went to the SP under the SP-RLD alliance.