UP elections: How RLD plans to counter the Love Jihad propaganda

RLD has fielded two candidates who have inter-religious and inter-caste marriages.

Lucknow, Jan 28: The Uttar Pradesh Assembly election 2017 is only getting interesting with each passing day. The Rashtriya Lok Dal has devised a strategy to get votes from both Muslims and Jats. The party has fielded two candidates who have inter-religious and inter-caste marriages.

The party has fielded Anju Muskan a Dalit from the Hapur assembly constituency. She is married to a local RLD leader Farman Ali. Kusum Devi a Dalit from Hastinapur who is married to a Gujjar too has been fielded as a candidate.

RLD feels that this strategy would help it stitch the broken fabric. The Muzzafarnagar riots in UP has broken several families. The RLD says that the decision to field such candidates would send across a message to several groups who have been propagating about 'love jihad."

RLD feels that Muskan would get the Dalit votes from Hapur which amounts to around 45,000. Considering she is married to Ali, she could bag a majority of Muslim votes which accounts to 1 lakh.

In the case of Kusum, the RLD is banking on both the Dalit and Gujjar votes. In the Hastinapur constituency there are 70,000 Gujjars and 45,000 Dalits. Kusum had banked on this same combination to win the Zilla Panchayat election in 2016.

OneIndia News