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Journalism of Courage
The contest for the Jat vote in Rajasthan, estimated at around 10% of the state’s population, has got stiffer ahead of the Assembly elections.
While they have traditionally rallied behind the Congress, the BJP has been able to reach out to them over the last decade, and they are also considered the core constituency of the Rashtriya Loktantrik party (RLP). Now, Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), an ally of the BJP in Haryana, with lineage going back to prominent Jat leader and former deputy prime minister Devi Lal, has entered this landscape, announcing it will contest 25 to 30 seats in the state.
The JJP was formed after a split within the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), and its leader Dushyant Chautala is Deputy Chief Minister in the BJP-led Haryana government.
Bordering Haryana, Rajasthan is natural progression for the JJP, with Devi Lal sharing old links with the state, having won the Sikar Lok Sabha seat in 1989. Dushyant’s father and former MP Ajay Singh has also contested and won elections from Rajasthan, including from the Danta Ramgarh seat in 1990 on a Janata Dal ticket.
While the JJP had earlier said it would ally with the BJP in Rajasthan too, the latter has not confirmed the partnership. In Haryana, their partnership has seen some rocky times but survived so far.
But Dushyant’s speech last week was an indication of where the JJP is leaning: he focused his attacks on the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government over multiple issues, hinting that channels with the BJP were open.
Congress to BJP to both
Rajasthan’s first Congress government, under Congress Chief Minister Tikaram Paliwal, had abolished the jagirdari system and introduced reforms in the 1950s, giving farmers rights over the land. This was a big win for an agrarian community like the Jats. Many party leaders such as Nathu Ram Mirdha, Kumbha Ram Arya and Ram Niwas Mirdha went on to become MLAs, then ministers and even Union ministers. Their families continue to be in politics still.
However, the alleged sidelining of senior Jat leaders such as Parasram Maderna after the ascendance of Gehlot in the Congress following the 1998 Assembly elections led to rise in resentment within the community towards the Congress. In the 2003 Assembly polls, a section was seen as having veered towards the BJP, particularly after then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s announcement at a rally in Sikar that Jats would be included in the OBC category and be eligible for reservation.
When Vasundhara Raje was named the BJP’s CM face in 2003, she called herself the daughter-in-law of Jats and appealed for the community’s votes.
Now, the Jat votes are seen as evenly divided between the Congress and BJP, with multiple legislators from the community in both the parties.
Recently, in another move to woo the Jats, the BJP inducted former Nagaur MP Jyoti Mirdha, the granddaughter of late Congress stalwart Nathu Ram Mirdha.
New stakeholders
In 2018, then MLA Beniwal, who had started his electoral journey with the INLD before moving to the BJP and then leaving it too, formed the RLP. In the 2018 Assembly elections, the RLP won three seats, largely on the strength of Jat support.
In the Vallabhnagar bypoll of 2021, the RLP got more than double the votes of the BJP.
In an interview to The Indian Express last year, Beniwal said Jat voters would have a significant influence in 20 to 21 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan, out of the total 25.
Asked about the JJP’s entry in Rajasthan and its efforts to woo the Jat community, Congress spokesperson Swarnim Chaturvedi said: “The JJP is in a very bad position in its own state of Haryana and won’t get a single seat in the Haryana Assembly elections because people of the state now know their corruption. What will they do in Rajasthan? In Rajasthan, all communities will vote for the Congress and its governance model.”
Earlier this month, RLP supremo Beniwal said the JJP will make no difference in Rajasthan and asserted that the public of Rajasthan will no longer vote for parties based in other states, such as the JJP.
Jat numbers
