Rohtak: Saffron party sticks to ‘divide Jat, non-jat vote’ plan

Normally, parties would want to field a Jat candidate from Rohtak considering the dominance of the community here. The BJP fielding a Brahmin shows it is pretty confident that even a non-jat can sway the polls in its favour.

PROF RAJENDER SHARMA, head of political science dept, MDU

ROHTAK : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has repeated its strategy of caste polarisation by fielding Arvind Sharma, a Brahmin, as its candidate from the Jat-dominated Rohtak Lok Sabha seat.

Sharma, a three-time former MP, had joined the saffron party only recently. He will be facing Congress’ sitting MP Deepender Singh Hooda who has won three consecutive times from the seat since 2005.

As per poll pundits, the move by the BJP is backed by caste calculations. The saffron party wants to consolidate non-jat votes in its favour by exploiting the caste fault lines that have built up after the violent Jat quota agitation of 2016.

“Normally, parties would want to field a Jat candidate from Rohtak considering the dominance of the community here. The BJP fielding a Brahmin shows it is pretty confident that even a non-jat can sway the polls in its favour. Rohtak was the epicentre of the Jat reservation movement and a polarisation of Jats and non-jats that already existed in Haryana has widened further. The BJP knows it does not have the support of Jats, so it is focusing on the non-jats who collectively form the majority,” said professor Rajender Sharma, the head of political science department at Maharshi Dayanand University (MDU) in Rohtak.

The BJP had earlier this year, too, fielded a non-jat candidate from Jind assembly seat that had a dominance of Jat voters.

What had worked for the party was a division of Jat votes between the opposition INLD, Congress and JJP— who all had fielded a Jat candidate— while the BJP’S Punjabi candidate got a major chunk of non-jat votes to register an emphatic win.

In Rohtak again, INLD and AAP-JJP alliance are expected to announce a Jat candidate considering their strongholds while Congress has already named Deepender as its candidate.

In such a case, the BJP may have an advantage again to enjoy the maximum support of nonjats while Jat votes get divided among others.

“Opting for a Brahmin and not Punjabi or Baniya would give the BJP some more advantage. Brahmins have more acceptability in rural Haryana as compared to other castes. They may even get some Jat votes in villages,” said Sharma.

The BJP had positioned Jat leader OP Dhankar from Rohtak to fight against Deepender in 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Though Dhankar, bolstered by Modi-wave, had managed to reduce Deepender’s winning margin, he had lost out by over 1.5 lakh votes. Rohtak was the only constituency in 2014 from where the Congress had won in Haryana. Naturally, the BJP took extra time in chalking out a strategy for it.

“Another reason for fielding a non-jat could be Dhankar’s loss. The BJP has tried to win against Deepender with a Jat candidate. So it is fair that the party now experiments with a non-jat face,” said another political expert, who requested he not be named.

“Though Rohtak has around 6 lakh Jat votes, it also has 3 lakh Brahmin votes. So the party has smartly targeted another major chunk. Sharma, himself a seasoned politician, can give Deepender a run for his money this time,” he said.