Amid BJP churn in UP, how a row between Sanjeev Balyan, Sangeet Som has laid bare the Rajput-Jat faultline

At a time the BJP is set to conduct a review of its Lok Sabha election performance in Uttar Pradesh and several leaders have blamed “internal sabotage” for the party’s poor showing, two prominent BJP leaders from west UP are publicly targeting each other.

Former Union Minister andtwo-term Muzaffarnagar MP Sanjeev Balyan who lost the election this time has accused the party’s former Sardhana MLA Sangeet Singh Som of sabotaging his re-election effort by “supporting the Samajwadi Party (SP)”. Sardhana is one of the five Assembly segments of the Muzaffarnagar parliamentary seat, the others being Budhana, Charthawal, Muzaffarnagar, and Khatauli.

Balyan, who lost the seat to SP’s Harendra Singh Malik by 24,672 votes, told The Indian Express on Thursday, “He (Sangeet Som) supported the SP candidate in the election. The atmosphere in west UP was spoiled through panchayats (of the Rajput community) and he was the sutradhar (facilitator) of these panchayats. That divided the sarv samaj. That affected the results in Kairana and Saharanpur also.” While the Congress’s Imran Masood won Saharanpur, the SP’s Iqra Choudhary bagged Kairana. In the run-up to the elections, Balyan faced boycott calls from Rajputs angry over alleged Jat dominance in the party and the alleged sidelining of Rajputs, saying it reflected in the ticket distribution.

Balyan who is a Jat said the consolidation of Muslim votes behind the Opposition, the division among Hindus, and low voter turnout were key factors in his defeat. However, he added, that the alliance with Jayant Chaudhary’s Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) helped the BJP. Of the 19 Lok Sabha seats in west BJP, the BJP won 10 and the RLD two. The BJP had won 12 of these seats in 2019. At the time, the RLD was an