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Jayant Chaudhary-led party restructures organisation while seeking wider presence ahead of the 2027 Uttar Pradesh elections.
The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), under the leadership of Union Minister of State for Education Jayant Chaudhary, has intensified its organisational and electoral preparations for the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, with the party focusing on strengthening its booth-level network, restructuring its organisation and expanding its political footprint beyond its traditional stronghold of western Uttar Pradesh.
A senior source in the party told Read that the RLD, a constituent of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), is currently concentrating on strengthening the alliance’s position in western Uttar Pradesh while simultaneously building its organisation across the state. The party is working towards improving the NDA’s performance compared with the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and has set an ambitious objective of contributing to an NDA victory with a two-thirds majority in the 403-member Assembly.
The RLD’s preparations include an emphasis on public welfare, regional development and sustained grassroots outreach. The party is also undertaking an organisational overhaul aimed at establishing greater accountability at the local level. Following the dissolution of its Uttar Pradesh state executive, the RLD has constituted “Team RLD” as part of its restructuring exercise. Dedicated coordinators have been appointed at the levels of gram panchayats, individual booths, Assembly constituencies and districts. The new structure is intended to strengthen communication between the grassroots organisation and the party’s state and national leadership, while also improving feedback collection and accountability.
The party has simultaneously begun a “Samajik Samrasta” (social harmony) outreach programme in western Uttar Pradesh. Through district-level social harmony conventions, the RLD is seeking to widen its engagement with different sections of society, including Muslims, while reinforcing its traditional support among Jats and farming communities. The initiative assumes significance in a region where Jat-Muslim social and electoral equations have historically played an important role. The RLD’s outreach is aimed at presenting an inclusive social alliance and preventing rival parties, particularly the Samajwadi Party (SP), from consolidating support among non-Yadav OBCs and Muslim voters in western Uttar Pradesh.
The party has also adopted an increasingly visible political strategy in response to rival programmes in the region. In September, after SP president Akhilesh Yadav announced a major rally in Saharanpur, Jayant Chaudhary organised a Swabhiman Rally in the same district shortly before the proposed SP event. RLD leaders subsequently projected the turnout at their rally as a demonstration of the party’s organisational strength in the region and claimed that the SP cancelled its subsequent programmes in Saharanpur and Bulandshahr amid concerns over the response. The RLD used the development to reinforce its narrative around the support of the region’s “36 Biradari” communities. Beyond western Uttar Pradesh, the RLD is seeking to build a presence in other parts of the state.
The party has directed its organisational machinery to intensify preparations in nearly 50 Assembly constituencies, indicating an attempt to move beyond its traditional geographical base and establish itself as a broader political force ahead of the 2027 polls. The expansion drive also comes against the backdrop of growing competition over the non-Yadav OBC and Muslim vote. While the RLD’s traditional support base has centred on Jats and farmers, the party is now seeking to broaden its social coalition through grassroots outreach, welfare messaging and its participation in the Union government. The party has also maintained a presence in areas traditionally associated with rival political formations, including Moradabad, as part of its effort to expand its organisational network and voter outreach.
Seat-sharing, meanwhile, has emerged as an important issue within the NDA’s preparations for the Assembly elections. The RLD has publicly maintained that the final allocation of constituencies will be decided collectively among the alliance partners and has not announced a fixed number of seats it intends to contest. However, sources within the RLD told Read that the party has sought more than 50 Assembly seats. BJP sources, meanwhile, indicated that the party is currently considering an allocation of around 20 to 25 seats for the RLD. The substantial gap between the two positions marks the early stage of negotiations within the NDA, with the final seat-sharing arrangement expected to be worked out through discussions among the alliance partners.
RLD national general secretary Trilok Tyagi told Read that the NDA would contest the Uttar Pradesh elections unitedly and said the party was preparing across all 403 Assembly constituencies. “The NDA will contest the elections unitedly. RLD is working on all 403 seats. Several rallies of Jayant Chaudhary have already taken place across Uttar Pradesh. At present, we are holding meetings at the district level. I have personally attended several conferences in different districts. After this, we will start the campaign from mid-October,” Tyagi said. The party’s strategy, therefore, combines consolidation of its traditional western Uttar Pradesh base with an expansion into new constituencies, backed by organisational restructuring and an emphasis on social outreach.