Will west UP's bristling Jats pin BJP to the mat in poll dangal?

MEERUT: Rakesh Chauhan, 52, a sugarcane farmer from village Ramala, 25km from Baghpat, shares a trade secret to illustrate the state of play in UP's Jat belt. " At the beginning of every crop season, what we know is not what crop is to be sown, but what we don't have to. I'm still undecided, but I know for sure I'm not voting for the BJP ," he says.

Spread over 90 assembly seats across 17 west UP districts -with an almost 30% concentration of votes in districts like Mathura and Baghpat-Jats, who overwhelmingly voted for BJP in 2014, are now divided. A strong anti-BJP sentiment simmers in the community. Umesh Panwar, a tiller from Bhainswal village of Shamli, adds: "The party (BJP) used us, then betrayed us. During the 2013 riots, we abandoned our close ties with our Muslim brethren for BJP and asserted our Hindu identity. Yet, over 6,000 cases were slapped on us. Many of us were jailed. No BJP leader sympathised. The riots tarnished the community's image."

A TOI team, travelling through a string of western UP villages, met khap and influential caste leaders. Their arefrain: Jat disillusionment with BJP came after the party showed indifference over its "mishandling" of the Jat quota agitation in Haryana last May. As many as 19 people died in that stir. Chaudhary Surender Singh heads UP's largest Tomar khap that covers 84 villages in Baghpat, Meerut and Muzaffarnagar. "The Centre could have strongly favoured Jat quota in the Supreme Court. Instead, it brutally crushed our agitation," he says. The Akhil Bharatiya Jat Aarakshan Samiti, a forum which spearheaded the stir, plans to launch teams from Haryana, UP , Rajasthan and Delhi to campaign against the BJP in UP and Uttarakhand.Its national president Yashpal Malik says: "The party has lost our trust. We'll make sure they bite the dust in UP."



The region, one of the country's largest sugar producing areas, has been hit by demonetisation. Jitender Hudda, a farmer from Kheri Vairagi, Shamli, complains: " After unseasonal rains ruined our crops in 2015, we were looking forward to a better year. But notebandi hit us like a thunderbolt. Cane farming needs a lot of money. With all the cash gone, we were all at sea."

Some Jats believe the unintended beneficiary of the resentment against the BJP could be Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal, which was on the verge of being written off after its 2012 Assembly and 2014 LS poll debacles. Jayant Chaudhary , RLD's national general secretary , agrees. "Not just Jats, all sections here are angry with BJP's anti-farmer policies. Their anti-quota stance added fuel to fire." He adds that an alliance with SPCongress would have helped.Former Union minister Sompal Shastri says, "BJP has done little for farmers; demonetisation's crippled the local economy . Of Baghpat's over 600 brick kilns, a dozen are working."

But some say conditions aren't as bad for BJP . Sanjeev Rana, a farmer in Bijnor, says: "People still have faith in the party. I don't see BJP's support sagging." But Jaipal Singh from Mandawali village in Bijnor, seems to have made up his mind. "West UP's Jat MPs are BJP netas. We need leaders who talk about our problems and dreams. RLD has been our traditional party ."