At least two senior Gujjar leaders of the ruling BJP have claimed lack of enough representation for the community in the state ministry, with Vijay Bainsla also asking why the Bhajan Lal Sharma government had failed to ensure that quota for the community was included in the Ninth Schedule and hence put beyond judicial review.
The son of the architect of the Gujjar reservation agitation, the late Colonel Kirori Singh Bainsla, Vijay Bainsla, told The Indian Express that there was discontent within the community over the delay on the quota issue, given that “the (BJP) government is there at both the Centre and in the state”.
Speaking at a Gujjar Karamchari Adhikari Kalyan Parishad meeting recently, which was attended by senior Congress leader Sachin Pilot, Vijay Bainsla raised the decrease in the number of ministers from the community in the current government compared to the previous ones, and said: “Maza nahin aaya (It left a bad taste). It is true, it is bitter, but needs to be said. So, something needs to be done.”
Bainsla went on to refer to Pilot as “hum sab ke laadle, pyaare (a person dear to all of us)”. As supporters raised slogans in favour of Pilot and declared they “are with him”, Bainsla exhorted them to be louder, adding: “I too am (with Pilot), you don’t worry.” Asked about Pilot post the event, he said: “We hail from the same community and are not distant from each other.”
Currently, the BJP government has just one Gujjar face, Minister of State for Home, Jawahar Singh Bedam. In the preceding Congress government, Pilot was the Deputy Chief Minister and Ashok Chandna a Minister of State. Following Pilot’s rebellion and subsequent removal as Deputy CM and from the ministry, Shakuntala Rawat was made the Cabinet minister.
Before that, in the Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government (2013-18), Gujjar leader Hem Singh Bhadana was a Cabinet minister and Kalulal Gurjar the government Chief Whip.
Bainsla went on to question why the 5% quota for Most Backward Classes (including Gujjars and four other groups), passed in 2019 under the Congress government, was yet to be included in the Ninth Schedule.
While the previous Congress government had written two letters to the Centre on the issue, it is not clear whether the Bhajan Lal Sharma government has sent any.
Community leaders have also questioned why the promise of withdrawal of cases filed during the Gujjar reservation agitations had not been fulfilled, with not a single case taken back since the BJP formed the government in December 2023.
Bainsla told The Indian Express that community leaders across the state had been telling him the same, at community meetings held by him as part of his ‘Bol Gujjar Mann ki Baat’ initiative. “We go there and don’t say anything, but we give microphones to people to tell us what we’re doing right or wrong; what the government is doing right or wrong; and what they need us or the government to change. Everywhere, we hear a single sentence – Ninth Schedule and what’s in it for us,” he said.
Bainsla claimed to have held about nine such meetings over the last month and a half, from small gatherings of about 500 to those going up to over a thousand people.
The Gujjar leader has been nursing a grouse over the BJP denying a ticket to him for the Deoli Uniara bypoll in 2024, claiming no discussion was held with him. In the 2023 Assembly polls, Bainsla had lost to the Congress’s Harish Meena from Deoli Uniara by just over 19,000 votes. For the bypoll necessitated by Meena’s election to the Lok Sabha last year, the party dropped Bainsla and fielded former MLA Rajendra Gurjar, who went on to win.
BJP leader Kalulal Gurjar, the state president of the Rajasthan Gurjar Mahasabha, agreed with Bainsla on “the dearth (of representation)” in the government. “There should be another (Gujjar) Cabinet minister and one more in corporations or boards (as chairperson).”
While also agreeing with Bainsla over the need to include the Gujjar quota in the Ninth Schedule, Kalulal said such issues were better raised within party fora. “He is now in the party and he should raise it at the appropriate level in the party and the government,” Kalulal said, adding that if Bainsla could procure a ticket, “he can also go and raise the issue in Delhi”.
Asked about the issues raised by fellow Gujjar leaders, Minister of State, Home, Jawahar Singh Bedam told The Indian Express that the Bhajan Lal Sharma government is “sensitive to all the points. The issues on which justifiable action can be taken by the government, it is being done.”
On the withdrawal of cases against the protesters dealing with violence, arson, damage to public property, etc, Bedam said “directions have been issued, reports have been received from some districts while they are awaited from others. A decision will soon be taken on this. As for the other issues, they will be justifiably addressed at an appropriate time.”
Asked about the lack of progress on the inclusion of the quota for MBCs in the Ninth Schedule, Bedam said, “Vijay Bainsla is himself a BJP leader.”
Gujjar leader and Congress MLA Ashok Chandna said he was not surprised at the BJP government’s handling of the community’s issues. “All OBCs, SCs and STs are facing injustice in this government. They aren’t getting the representation they should have. The government isn’t paying attention … it will face the consequences… They have a ‘double engine’ government, so they should now get the quota included in the Ninth Schedule.”
Share
