Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made the “abki baar 400 paar” cry for all to hear; now, for how to give it credible legs.

After snapping up Nitish Kumar to its side in Bihar yet again, the BJP leadership has launched a determined effort to inflict another blow to INDIA and feed the ranks of the NDA, which it heads. Next in its crosshairs is the west Uttar Pradesh-based Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) headed by Jayant Chaudhary, grandson of the late Chaudhary Charan Singh. Party insiders told The Telegraph on Wednesday that backroom efforts had been launched to get Jayant to cross over.

The ruling party has also turned its gaze towards the south and is learnt to be exploring an electoral alliance with former chief minister Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh.

The deal with RLD boss Jayant has almost been clinched, the BJP insiders claimed. They said that the RLD had been offered five Lok Sabha seats plus one or two ministerial berths in the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh if it broke away from the INDIA bloc and joined the NDA. “The deal is almost done, you can expect a formal announcement as Rahul Gandhi’s yatra enters Uttar Pradesh,” a key BJP leader from western Uttar Pradesh said, emphasising that the time had been picked especially to embarrass the Congress leader, currently out on his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra.

“The day Rahul’s yatra started from Manipur, Milind Deora quit the Congress and joined the BJP. As the yatra was to enter Bihar, Nitish Kumar crossed over and now another blow from UP awaits the INDI Alliance,” the leader remarked with unveiled glee.

The RLD, which claims to carry forward the legacy of farmers’ leader and former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh, draws strength from the agrarian Jat community that has a strong presence in west Uttar Pradesh.

On the southern front, TDP boss Naidu reached Delhi on Wednesday evening and was scheduled to hold talks with home minister Amit Shah and BJP chief J.P. Nadda; there is also a possibility Naidu will meet Modi if confabulations progress on lines that the
BJP expects.

Despite Naidu’s eagerness to return to the NDA, the BJP leadership initially did not appear keen on a tie-up but the 400-plus claim has probably necessitated a change; the party is not averse now to ally with the TDP if that would mean picking up a couple of additional seats in Andhra. Naidu had snapped ties with the BJP ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections over the denial of special status to Andhra post the bifurcation of the erstwhile state and the creation of Telangana.

“To achieve the 400-plus tally we need to win a good number of seats in southern states in addition to achieving saturation in the north, west and central states,” a BJP leader said. Speaking in the Lok Sabha on Monday, Modi had raised the slogan of “Abki baar 400 paar” (400 plus this time) and said that while the NDA would cross the 400 seats tally, the BJP alone would get not less than 370 seats.

Party insiders believe that apart from inflicting another body blow to the INDIA bloc, the BJP’s calculation behind courting the RLD is to ensure saturation in the largest state by winning all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP. By getting the RLD, the BJP hopes to sweep all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in west UP easily.

In the last Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had won 19 of these 26 seats when the two key Opposition parties in the state — the SP and the BSP — along with the RLD had joined hands. “The SP and BSP had gained on our turf in 2019 but the RLD failed to win even a single seat. Both our top leaders Ajit Singh and his son Jayant lost,” one RLD leader said, arguing that joining hands with the BJP could be better for their party.

One BJP MP from west UP said that Jayant had been insisting on seven Lok Sabha seats because he had been offered the same number by the SP as part of the INDIA bloc deal. The BJP, however, is luring Jayant with the “real prospect” of being awarded one berth in the Modi government after the polls.

“What will he (Jayant) gain in the INDIA bloc? Will he be able to win the seven seats? With the BJP, the RLD can win all the four-five seats it gets. Jayant can also become a minister in the Modi 3.0 government,” the BJP MP said.

Lok Sabha MP Dimple Yadav, wife of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, hoped Jayant won’t ditch them. “The way the BJP has been working against the farmers and the way our wrestlers have been insulted by the BJP, I don’t think RLD national president Jayant Chaudhary will take any step that will damage our farmers directly,” she said when asked about speculation of the RLD joining hands with the BJP.