This marriage of convenience is basically to benefit BJP’s national president Rajnath Singh and RLD chief Ajit Singh’s son Jayant Singh, who are contesting from Ghaziabad and Mathura, respectively.

Since Rajnath will be contesting the Lok Sabha elections for the second time in his entire political career — the first time he unsuccessfully contested from Mirzapur in 1984 — winning the Ghaziabad seat has become a prestige issue for him. For Jayant too, winning Mathura Lok Sabha seat is a prestige issue as he represents the third generation of Chowdhury Charan Singh and is contesting the Lok Sabha election for the first time.

The leaders of the BJP are, however, unhappy with the alliance. “The party will gain a maximum six seats with this alliance but will face the adverse impact of Kalyan Singh’s exit in over a dozen seats,” a senior BJP leader. Pointing to RLD MPs’ support to Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati and subsequent voting against the UPA government on the Nuclear Deal issue, the BJP leader said, “Ajit Singh is known as an opportunist whose credibility is always under doubt.”

Before leaving the BJP, Kalyan Singh had started opposing any tie-up with RLD. It gained strength when a delegation of senior BJP leaders comprising Ramapati Ram Tripathi, Kalraj Mishra, Vinay Katiyar and Om Prakash Singh gave a representation to the party’s central leadership putting their foot down on the issue of alliance with Ajit Singh. Post alliance, these senior leaders have chosen to remain silent and say, “This is the decision of the party which should be respected.” The reason, however, is different. They are silent since the alliance will have negligible impact on the seats where they will be contesting.

Nevertheless, the alliance will be a gain for the RLD which had three MPs in the current Lok Sabha. Ajit Singh is expecting to get votes of BJP’s urban voters. “Mathura, from where Ajit’s son Jayant is contesting, is basically dominated by Brahmins, Thakur and Jaat. Any alliance with the BJP will go in favour of Jayant,” said a RLD leader. But at the same time RLD fears that an alliance with the BJP may affect the party’s secular image and consequently it may lose its traditional Muslim votes.

During the 1998 general elections, the RLD had struck an alliance for the first time. It has then tied up with the Congress. Though the party failed to retain even party president Ajit Singh’s seat, it however gained next year in 1999 when it contested in alliance with the Congress again and won two seats. In 2004, Ajit Singh joined hands with Samajwadi Party and added one more seat to its tally. The coming Lok Sabha elections will be the first time when RLD will be contesting the polls in an alliance with the BJP.