Even though Charan Singh was known for the politics of strategic defections, splits and mergers, he always promoted his brand of politics and expanded his social base through such opportunistic alliances. Charan Singh’s undiluted ambition was to be the authentic voice of the agricultural-interest, and indirectly of the backward classes of India, through a common ideological strand. Ajit Singh inherited from his father the ability to defect at the opportune moment. But he could not emulate him as an ideologically rooted person, promoting the cause of an important class. At best, he only became the leader of his clan with a limited cognitive world. In the process, he marginalised and confined himself over the years to only a few Jat-dominated districts of western UP. Even his slogan for ‘Harit Pradesh’ could not create a sub-national ripple cutting across caste and class in western UP.

Though he was cast in the Lohiaite mould, Mulayam Singh Yadav could not make his politics inclusive or large enough to accommodate the lowest social strata. In this sense, Ajit and Mulayam are both products of the same class configuration.

Their hostility towards agricultural labour is indeed rooted in this class background. This divide between the two strata of the subalterns — one comprising the upper backwards like Jats and Yadavs and the other comprising sections of the lower backwards and dalits — is revealed in various social arena. It also gets reflected in electoral and political terms in the animus between SP and BSP.

... contd.