In the run-up to the Uttar Pradesh elections, the Jats are working behind closed doors to wrest the vote away from the saffron party.
On January 8, the All India Jat Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti (AIJASS), which comprises hundreds of Jat khaps in North India, took a momentous decision at a rally of nearly 40,000 people in Kharad village of Muzaffarnagar: to not vote for the BJP in the upcoming assembly elections and to rebuild the Jat-Muslim alliance that was broken in the aftermath of the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots.
In the office of a construction company that is located on the ground floor of an incomplete mall in Ghaziabad, Yashpal Malik, the convenor of the AIJASS, is piecing together a new strategy that may change the outcome of the upcoming UP assembly elections in which voting starts February 11. The 2013 communal riots disrupted the equilibrium of western UP politics and consequently the communal harmony in the region as well. Jats shifted en masse in favour of the BJP.
Three years is a long time when it comes to hinterland politics. The Jat community which was beguiled by the lofty promises made by the BJP in the run-up to the 2014 elections is now increasingly wary of the BJP/RSS and its brigade. According to Malik, the community is no longer enthralled by the saffron party and wants to return to pre-2013 riots status quo. Malik says, “The Jats and the Dalits are no longer going to fall in the trap of communal forces.” The estrangement of Jats from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) should not come as news to those who follow the politics of this region. There was concern discernible in Malik’s analysis when he discussed the possibility of Muslims abandoning Jats and joining hands with the Dalits to give a fillip to the BSP’s chances in Western UP.
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