Jat votes may pose challenge for BJP
BHARATPUR: The Jat community, which dominates the population of Eastern Rajasthan’s Bharatpur and Karauli-Dholpur, is likely to pose a challenge for the Bharatiya Janata Party in the general elections as the community’s leaders declared not to vote for the party accusing that it “failed to fulfil their demand of a special reservation in OBC category in central government jobs”.
It has been a long-standing demand of the community, with the Jats of these two regions raising the issue for the last nine years as they feel that they were “deprived” of the quota in 2014 during the BJPled NDA government.
The community’s hope for a resolution was revived after the BJP came to power in the state after winning the assembly polls held last year.
However the Jats held dharna in January 17 over their demands.
After a 21-day long dharna, the state government agreed to sit with the Jat leaders on February 6 — in which they were assured that a government delegate will visit the central officers and concerned ministers within next three days to resolve the matter.
But they resumed their protest as the delegates failed to have a successful discussion on the matter. Meanwhile, in March, they also declared a mission “Operation Gangajal” aiming to defeat the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections.
They also announced their support to the Congress candidate Sanjana Jatav from Bharatpur and Bhajan Lal Jatav from Karauli-Dholpur against the BJP candidates Indu Devi Jatav and Ramswaroop Koli respectively.
The anger among the Jats also heated up when one of their protesters, Subhash Maderna, who is also a four-time sarpanchh at Nagla Bija village was arrested by Jaipur police on April 8 following a dispute between two groups over his plot in Jaipur’s Sanganer.
Considering it as a “conspiracy by the BJP to spoil the image and honour of the Jatt community”, the convener of the Jat Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti Nem Singh Fouj said, “The BJP wants to finish the Jats and the farmers. The party who doesn’t even care about the death of 700 farmers at the border, cannot be trusted. The reservation is a long-time demand by us since Modi came to power in 2014. But they never paid heed to us. Our only target is to defeat them this time.” Vowing to defeat the party in the upcoming election, he also added: “The constituency is Jat dominant. The SC and ST, around 5,00,000 voters and 3,00,000 Muslim voters are with Jats. The caste identity of the candidate will not matter. We only want a party who will stand by our side.”
While the Bharatpur constituency comprises around 22,114,916 voters for the Friday’s election, Karauli-Dholpur also has around 1,796,103 voters, according to data shared by the election commission.
Both the constituencies are considered a stronghold of BJP. The party has won the Bharatpur seat seven times since 1951 while the Congress bagged it six times. Meanwhile, the Karauli-Dholpur, which came into existence following 2009 delimitation, also witnessed the BJP winning twice in the last two general elections while Congress won once in 2009.
Reacting to the development, BJP candidate Ram Swaroop Koli said, “Our chief minister Bhajan Lal Sharma during his recent visit to Bharatpur on April 14 had assured the Jats to fulfil their demands. A slew of developmental works, including water supplying, roads, etc, has also been done in the area during the rule of BJP only.”