Lucknow: BJP is learnt to have opened back-channel talks with Samajwadi Party leader and former Basti MP Arvind Chaudhary, setting the buzz in UP’s political circles in the run up to the assembly elections.Chaudhary recently called on CM Yogi Adityanath, a move that has put the spotlight on the BJP’s purported attempt to ‘poach’ key leaders of the opposition camp. “It was a courtesy meeting with CM Yogi Adityanath and his leadership is appreciable,” Arvind told TOI on Thursday. He, however, refused to divulge further details about his future plans.
The meeting came months after Arvind began distancing himself from SP’s key political and other engagements, sources said.Arvind is the nephew of SP’s Basti MP Ram Prasad Chaudhary, a Kurmi — the community whom the BJP has been trying to consolidate to counter the Samajwadi Party and its ally Congress.Kurmis account for 5% of UP’s population and represent second largest OBC group after Yadavs in the state.Both Ram Prasad and Arvind were with the BSP before they joined the SP in 2020, after Prasad lost to BJP’s Harish Dwivedi in 2019 LS elections by 31,000 votes.Arvind was elected the MP from Basti in 2009 on a BSP ticket by defeating SP’s Raj Kishore Singh by a hefty margin of over 1 lakh votes.But in the 2014 LS elections, Mayawati replaced Arvind with Ram Prasad, who lost to Harish Dwivedi by a margin of over 70,000 votes. Ram Prasad lost again in 2019 but won back the Basti seat in 2024 by defeating Harish Dwivedi by a margin of 1 lakh votes.Arvind’s growing proximity to BJP signals BJP’s layered consolidation plan to woo Kurmis, which are said to have drifted away from the party after the SP flagged the Pichhda Dalit Alpsankhyak (PDA) narrative during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.Re-engaging influential Kurmi leaders like Arvind Chaudhary is also seen as less about one individual and more about symbolic reassurance to the community, especially in east UP region.This comes a month after the BJP played up the Kurmi card by appointing Union minister and seven-term Maharajganj MP Pankaj Chaudhary as the new state unit president.The BJP has also cemented its alliance with Anupriya Patel’s Apna Dal (S), a Kurmi dominated party, putting up a robust political structure since 2014, when the BJP rose like a political giant under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi.
