As the countdown to the first phase of the Uttar Pradesh elections on February 11 begins, the most striking development that has emerged through the campaign is the revolt of the Jats against the Bharatiya Janata Party. In the Lok Sabha elections of 2014, this dominant community — swept away by communal frenzy following the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013 — had played a critical role in the BJP’s stunning electoral victory.
Today, two-and-a-half years later, vestiges of hatred lurk beneath the picturesque sugarcane and mustard fields of western U.P. that turn the landscape green and gold in this season. But passions have cooled and the Jats have had time to think. Angered by the BJP-led government’s failure to grant the community reservation and devastated by demonetisation, they are now repenting deserting the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and the family of their hero, Chaudhury Charan Singh.
Failed efforts
Jats are so incensed that last Tuesday, BJP president Amit Shah was compelled to call a meeting of community leaders at the residence of Union Minister Chaudhury Birender Singh, a Jat leader from neighbouring Haryana. But the dinner diplomacy failed to pacify the guests. A day later, another BJP Jat leader and Union Minister of State and MP from Muzaffarnagar, Sanjiv Balyan, was asked to engage the community in Meerut. Reports suggest this effort, too, was unsuccessful.
Pushpinder Choudhury, who heads the politically unaffiliated Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti, says this development means that the RLD is back in business. “Jats will vote tactically to defeat the BJP. They will vote not just for Jat candidates or RLD candidates but also for whoever can defeat the BJP,” he told The Hindu.
That may be an exaggerated claim as a small section of Jats, especially those affiliated to the BJP, younger men in particular, will remain with the party. Reports coming in from western U.P. say the BJP — and organisations affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) — have, in the closing days of the campaign, attempted to reintroduce emotive Hindutva issues relating to the theft of cattle and molestation of Hindu girls. The promise to form anti-Romeo squads (another name for the love jihad campaign) is officially in the manifesto. As one farmer leader put, “Once the official campaigning closes, electioneering will continue on WhatsApp and Facebook.”
Onkar Singh, an RSS functionary from the Dharam Jagran Samanway in Muzaffarnagar, told The Hindu : “It’s a straight contest between the SP-Congress combine and the BJP. But once people start seeing the long lines of Muslims, the Hindus will all vote BJP.”
RLD factor
Conversations with members of all political parties in the fray suggest that the RLD could win anything between four and nine of the 73 seats, spread across 15 districts, going to the polls on February 11. But the fact that the party is now a player means that it will be a four-way contest — the Samajwadi Party (SP)-Congress combine, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the BJP and the RLD — making the outcome that much harder to predict.
Clear choice
Another significant community in this part of the State, the Muslims, are squarely behind the SP-Congress combine, as the two parties are most likely to provide them security, something they currently prize above development. The alliance, too, has given the SP a boost, with joint rallies in the region receiving rapturous receptions.
Muslims will, however, vote for the BSP wherever the alliance candidate is weak. This could place the latter party in a position of advantage in some seats, as the Dalit votes are sizeable here.
The BJP will clearly do better than it did in 2012 when it won just 11 of these 73 seats, but it appears unlikely to be anywhere comparable to their performance in 2014, when they won two-thirds of the Assembly segments in the Lok Sabha seats here. The BJP, SP-Congress and BSP sources all claim they are leading in the first phase, but political observers agree that it will be a direct fight between the BJP and the SP-Congress combine, with the BSP at No. 3.
