A day after the Bhartiya Janata Party president J P Nadda, home minister Amit Shah and agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar held a meeting with Jat leaders from Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan at the party’s headquarters in New Delhi, the saffron party leaders of this caste coming from UP met at the house of Union minister of state Sanjeev Baliyan on February 17.
As a large number of farmers of north India who are on the warpath against the three farm laws come from the Jat community, the saffron party is trying its level best to mobilise its own leaders.
Since Uttar Pradesh is going to polls early in 2022 the party is leaving no stone unturned to check the possible erosion of voters.
After the September 2013 communal riots in Muzaffarnagar the Jats have heavily been voting for the BJP. In the two Lok Sabha elections held in 2014 and 2019 and in the Assembly poll of 2017 the BJP performed exceedingly well in the western part of the state where there is a palpable Jat population.
In both the meetings held on Tuesday and Wednesday the party discussed the strategy to win over the Jats who are holding Mahapanchayats in West UP, Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab.
As the Mahapanchayats are drawing huge crowds, the BJP has asked its workers to fan out to different nooks and corners of Uttar Pradesh to remove the ‘misgivings’ about the new farm laws. There are about 50 Assembly seats in West UP where Jat votes are extremely crucial. Now a large number of Muslims, Jatavs and other caste-men are attending the Mahapanchayats. The Congress, Rashtriya Lok Dal and Samajwadi Party leaders and workers are very active in the entire region. Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi too has addressed several Mahapanchayats.
