Chaudhary, a Union minister, made the remarks while responding in Delhi to questions about Yadav’s comments on how many seats the RLD should receive from the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. Referring to the SP-RLD partnership in the 2022 Assembly election, Chaudhary said not everything discussed between allies was made public and suggested that revealing those conversations would put Yadav in a difficult position.
The latest exchange followed Yadav’s taunt that the RLD should be given 73 seats if the NDA genuinely wanted to show respect to former prime minister Chaudhary Charan Singh, Jayant Chaudhary’s grandfather and the party’s principal political icon. Chaudhary rejected the premise, saying Charan Singh’s standing could not be measured by the number of constituencies allocated to the RLD and would not diminish even if the party received none.
The dispute has moved beyond arguments over seat-sharing. Yadav had earlier said his party had turned a “chavanni”, or 25-paise coin, into a rupee and taught allies the ABCD of politics, remarks widely understood as aimed at Chaudhary after the RLD left the opposition camp and joined the NDA ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
Chaudhary responded by accusing Yadav of belittling the Jat community and said political disagreements should be directed at him personally rather than framed around a wider social group. At an RLD rally in Saharanpur, he later used his own alphabet formulation, saying “G” stood for sugarcane and “J” for Jat, while arguing that the SP would struggle to make political headway in western Uttar Pradesh.
The exchanges have become sharper because both parties are competing for influence in the state’s western districts, where the RLD has traditionally drawn support from farming communities, particularly Jats, while the SP has tried to combine its core support with a broader coalition of backward classes, Dalits, minorities and sections of the agrarian electorate.
Chaudhary has also sought to shift the argument towards development, education, employment and farmers’ concerns. He said politics should be fought over issues rather than references to coins and personal worth, and cited improved road connectivity between Saharanpur and Delhi while defending the NDA’s development record.
The SP has answered in equally combative terms. Party spokesperson Fakhrul Hasan Chand accused Chaudhary of ingratitude, pointing to his earlier election to the Rajya Sabha with SP support before the RLD changed alliances. He also challenged Chaudhary’s development claims, citing farmers’ difficulties, crop prices, stray cattle, paper leaks and unemployment, and said the SP would continue holding rallies in western Uttar Pradesh.
The rivalry marks a sharp change from 2022, when the SP and RLD fought the Assembly election together. The alliance was then built around an effort to consolidate anti-BJP votes in western Uttar Pradesh after the farmers’ agitation, with the RLD contesting seats under a broader opposition arrangement led by Yadav.
That partnership ended before the 2024 general election, when the RLD joined the NDA. Chaudhary subsequently entered the Union government, while the SP remained a principal opposition force in Uttar Pradesh and performed strongly in the Lok Sabha contest.
Seat-sharing for the 2027 Assembly election has not been formally announced by the NDA. Chaudhary has said the coalition’s partners will fight the state’s 403 constituencies with a common objective, while making clear that the RLD also intends to contest in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
The immediate argument, however, remains centred on political respect, alliance history and competing claims over western Uttar Pradesh. RLD leaders have treated Yadav’s language as an attack on their party and its social base, while SP representatives have framed Chaudhary’s responses as an attempt to deflect attention from policy issues affecting farmers and young people.
The quarrel has also spilled beyond the two leaders. RLD workers have protested Yadav’s “chavanni” remark, arguing that political opposition should not become personal disparagement. Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati also criticised the comment and sought an apology, adding another strand to the dispute over whether the remark targeted only Chaudhary or carried a broader message about the Jat community and smaller parties.
