Comments
With Assembly elections imminent in Uttar Pradesh, the issue of Jat reservation has reared up yet again, with various Khap leaders and community leaders raising the issue at a mammoth gathering on Sunday.
Led by Jat Reservation Action Committee chief Yashpal Singh, leaders at the rally in Karada village between Meerut and Shamli in western UP, threatened to launch a countrywide agitation to demand reservation from January 29, when campaigning for the polls would be at its peak.
The rally spelt trouble for the BJP, which had swept the western UP region in the Lok Sabha elections of 2014, when the Jats overwhelmingly voting to elect Narendra Modi as Prime Minister. In the aftermath of the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, the communal polarisation had benefited the BJP the most.
However, the cash crunch during the rabi sowing season owing to demonetisation, and the import duty relaxation for wheat has left the farmers in the region agitated. The demand for reservation, with the community leaders in neighbouring Haryana threatening to launch an all-India agitation, has added to the cracks in the Jats’ affiliation with the BJP.
Singh appealed to the people of Uttar Pradesh not to vote for BJP in February’s elections, claiming that the party failed to failed to fulfil his community’s demands for quota. Singh claimed the BJP would “struggle to save its deposit” in western UP while addressing Sunday’s rally, in which Jat leaders from leaders Haryana, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab and Rajasthan were present.
He said the Jat voters would teach a lesson to BJP for not delivering on its promise of reservation in Haryana, for and the lives lost during the quota agitation. The committee’s Punjab chief said the Jat voters in the poll-bound State would avenge the injustice meted out to their Haryana brethren by the BJP government there.
Jitender Singh Hooda, an independent farmer and Jat leader, said the PM had “betrayed” his promise to the farmers about fixing the MSP price at 50 per cent above input cost. “Demonetisation struck us in the middle of the harvest for sugarcane and then sowing of the rabi crop. Then the government has done away with import duty for wheat. This is an anti-farmer government,” Hooda told BusinessLine .
Comments
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.