Samajwadi Party national president Akhilesh Yadav’s “chavanni ko rupaya bana diya” jibe at former ally and Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Jayant Chaudhary, who is the Union minister of state (independent charge) for skill development, has snowballed into a political controversy.
Bahujan Samaj Party national president Mayawati and Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya are accusing the SP leader of insulting not only Jayant, but also the Jat community and the political legacy of his (Jayant’s) grandfather, former prime minister Chaudhary Charan Singh. He also accused Akhilesh of insulting Jayant and invoked Charan Singh’s contribution to farmers and western Uttar Pradesh. The BJP’s intervention is significant as the party seeks to consolidate its political alliance with the RLD ahead of the 2027 assembly elections.
“The truth is that the SP chief has squandered what Netaji (Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav) built,” Maurya said. During the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly election campaign, Jayant had said, “Main koi chavanni nahin hoon jo palat jaunga.” (I am not a 25-paise coin that I will flip) as he rejected public overtures and invitations from senior BJP leaders to switch sides.
Political experts suggest the controversy offers the BJP-RLD alliance an opportunity to consolidate Jat support and strengthen its western UP social coalition. For the SP-Congress opposition, the challenge will be to prevent the issue from alienating Jat voters while retaining its broader alliance. Consequently, the controversy has added a fresh layer to the battle for western UP, where Jat sentiment could prove crucial in shaping the 2027 electoral outcome.
“If you had to use such cheap words in a political battle, you could have simply taken my name– there would have been no issue,” Jayant said on X, objecting to the reference to the Jat community. He also warned that the arrogance he had witnessed “from close quarters” eventually leads to political decline.
