Mayawati demands Akhilesh Yadav apologise to Jats over "Chavanni" remark; Jayant Chaudhary slams Yadav too
BSP supremo Mayawati on Saturday, August 22, demanded that Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav apologise to the entire Jat community for his "derogatory" remarks against the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and its president, Union Minister Jayant Chaudhary, grandson of former prime minister the late Charan Singh.
In a post on X, Mayawati described Yadav's public remark about his former ally RLD and its leader Jayant Chaudhary — that "we turned them from 'chavanni' (quarter) into a rupee" — as "completely improper, indecent and highly shameful."
She said Yadav should apologise not only to the RLD and Chaudhary but also to the wider Jat community for insulting the family of former prime minister Chaudhary Charan Singh.
The prominent peasant leader Charan Singh served as prime minister from July 1979 to January 1980. His son and Jayant's father, the late Ajit Singh, was also a former Union minister.
Mayawati further accused the SP of pursuing caste-driven, narrow-minded politics, alleging that its approach had harmed not just rival parties but even its own former allies. She claimed the SP's politics had, on several occasions, ended up benefiting the BJP electorally while weakening secular political forces.
Recalling the 1993 SP-BSP alliance, Mayawati said it collapsed due to what she called the SP's "arrogant" attitude, which eventually led to the 1995 Lucknow state guest house incident. In June 1995, BSP leaders and workers were allegedly attacked by SP supporters at the state guest house amid tensions following the alliance's breakdown, with Mayawati alleging there was even a conspiracy to kill her at the time.
She also referred to the 2019 Lok Sabha alliance between the SP and BSP, claiming that it too ended because of Akhilesh Yadav's arrogant and self-serving attitude after the alliance failed to deliver the expected electoral results.
Mayawati accused the SP of entering alliances purely for political advantage and abandoning them once its interests were served.
Targeting Akhilesh Yadav's PDA (Pichhda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) formula, she alleged that the meaning of the "P" was changed depending on political convenience — at times projected as representing backward classes, and at other times as representing Brahmin interests.
She further alleged that previous SP governments had failed to take effective steps for Dalits, backward classes, minorities and upper-caste communities, particularly Brahmins, and instead ended up benefiting "goons, criminals, mafias and other anarchic elements."
Mayawati appealed to voters across communities to remain cautious of what she described as the SP's "narrow and casteist politics," urging them to ensure the party does not return to power in next year's Assembly elections.
Late on Friday night, Jayant Chaudhary, without naming Akhilesh Yadav directly, hit back at the SP chief's remarks.
"In the battle of politics, if you had to use some cheap words, you could have taken my name," Chaudhary said in a post on X.
Chaudhary added that he had witnessed such "arrogance" from close quarters before and believed such conduct ultimately leads to a person's downfall.
The exchange has revived the political significance of the "chavanni" remark ahead of the 2027 Uttar Pradesh elections. Yadav had recently said that the SP had turned "chavanni" into a rupee, referring to the political value he claimed his party had given its former allies.
The remark referenced comments Chaudhary made while campaigning for the 2022 Uttar Pradesh elections, when he rejected BJP's overtures for an SP alliance, saying he was not a "chavanni" who could be easily flipped. Chaudhary later joined the BJP-led NDA and currently serves as a Union minister.
The latest exchange marks a sharp reversal from the public bonhomie between Yadav and Chaudhary in the run-up to the 2022 polls, when the two parties campaigned together across western Uttar Pradesh. (With inputs from PTI)
