Jayant has his chance now, so long as he’s on a path which does not converge with that of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh. There are media which have been talking of a Jat-BJP rapprochement, but that wasn’t true. Striking a deal with the BJP may get Jayant and the RLD a few assembly seats, but, thereafter, what? He will be just another Jat orbiting BJP promises.

Maybe a minister-ship for one or two of his understudies would conclude the deal. And, then, for the next five years, he will be left with a stick of sugarcane to chew on. Jayant Chaudhary probably understood this better than the political analysts would give him credit for. This Chaudhary is playing hard to crack, and difficult to corner.

Also, there is nothing culpable in Jayant Chaudhary’s record that the Centre can hold over his head. The central hounds—Enforcement Directorate and the IT Department—can’t do nothing as helplessness hounds the BJP. More so, when the wind backing the BJP isn’t turning into the wave Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath keeps talking about.

Talking of Yogi Adityanath, he wouldn’t remain unemployed for long after March 10. Though not in the league of Dilip Kumar and Amrish Puri, there are shades of them in the Yogi. Post these assembly elections, Yogi Adityanath can try his hand in Bollywood, now that his dream project ‘Nollywood’ in western UP looks like it will get the axe in an Akhilesh Yadav-run Uttar Pradesh.

But we’re talking of Jat and Jayant of western Uttar Pradesh. Leaders of the BJP and the ruling party’s friendly attack dogs in the media have been crisscrossing the sugarcane fields of western UP, with TV channels holding desi versions of the phirengi ‘townhalls’, pointedly referring to Jat pride and how the Samajwadi Party had trampled it underfoot!

This, after SP leader and Chief Minister in waiting, Akhilesh Yadav did not give enough seats to RLD’s Jat leaders in the ticket sharing exercise. “Whatever happened to Jat asmitha, Jat pride?” asked TV anchors in chorus. “This is not what Jayant Chaudhary signed in for, was it?” Not surprisingly, the Hindi television media appeared jittery for the BJP. Also called the ‘mukhyadhara’, these media channels can‘t help but beat a retreat for the Samajwadi Party.

In private, in their studios, however, there is despair. Perhaps the realization that things do not look sunny and rosy for the BJP in UP’s Wild West, where Rakesh Tikait has gone with the wind without a trace. Right, where is the Jat kisan leader, Rakesh Tikait? He isn’t to be seen, and he isn’t anywhere in Punjab, either.

What we have in western Uttar Pradesh is the SP-RLD’s Jat-Muslim combination threatening the hegemony of the BJP’s Brahmin-Bania-other OBC arrangement. Without the Jat, however, the BJP looks sunk. The BJP leadership is worried, trying its best, even this late, to woo the Jat “back” to its fold.

Is it working? Maybe. Could be. Amit Shah is all over the place—seeking and beseeching, folded hands, door-to-door. The Union Home Minister is doing overtime in Meerut and Muzaffarnagar, and in the streets of Kairana, promising the moon for votes in return.

The Jats of western Uttar Pradesh are making the BJP sweat in wintry conditions. The BJP is missing the oratory of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is MIA. The SPG wouldn’t allow PM Modi door-to-door campaigning after Ferozepur. That said, the western UP Jat is not the Haryana Jat. It cannot be explained, but there is a difference, not the least of which is that the Jats of western UP are bent on giving the Bharatiya Janata Party a licking. The Jats are simple folks, but not so simple as to let go of a chance to play kingmaker! (IPA Service)