The Hindu : `Jats to vote unitedly in the Assembly elections'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 23, 2003

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Other States - Rajasthan

`Jats to vote unitedly in the Assembly elections'

By Our Special Correspondent

JAIPUR JUNE 22. The patron of the Jat Mahasabha, Gyanprakash Pilania said here today that the community would vote unitedly in the coming Assembly elections in Rajasthan. Jats as such were not politically aligned with any party but would choose between the Congress and the BJP depending on "their attitudes'' by the time the elections are held, he said.

However Dr. Pilania, who was in the vanguard of the successful reservation movement which finally led to the listing of the Jat community among the backwards in 1999, ruled out the community favouring the parties of either Om Prakash Chautala or Ajit Singh. "We will not let Haryana or Uttar Pradesh to take over Rajasthan,'' he said participating in a Meet the Press Programme at the Pink City Press Club here today.

Sounding rather defensive throughout in the context of the current agitation led by the Social Justice Front for reservation to the poor among the forward castes and also for a further categorization of the backward communities, Dr.Pilania, said Jats were against none. "The poor among the forward castes should get reservation. However that could be made possible only with a Constitutional amendment,'' he noted.

``Now there is a Mahabharat on in the State on reservations. People are playing politics with the issue and the values are given a go by,'' Dr.Pilania, a former DGP in Rajasthan, charged. "We are for social harmony and communal amity. We are against none,'' he said.

Dr.Pilania and another leader of the Jat Mahasabha, Dharamveer, a former IAS, tried to allay the impression that Jats bargained politically to get into the backwards list. "We were traditionally considered shudras. All the other caste groups from the `shudras' got into either ST or SC. We were the only one's left out. It is a canard to say that even the Maharani of Dholpur and former rulers of Bharatpur also would get reservation. They are in the creamy layer,'' it was pointed out.

Dr. Pilania noted that the community had struggled for 12 years to get justice. It was not that only the Jats who got the reservation through their efforts. "Other communities like Vishnois, Sindhi Muslims and Kayamkanis also got reservation along with us,'' he pointed out. He also indirectly indicated that a division of backwards into various categories would not be acceptable.

The Jat Mahasabha leaders complained of a vicious campaign against the community in the wake of it getting the backward status. Both Dr.Pilania and Mr.Dharamveer quoted figures to establish the backwardness of Jats in the civil services and professions like medicine and engineering. "The Social Justice Front have no locus standi. They speak for themselves,'' he asserted.

Dr. Pilania, responding to a question said the community believed that it was the Central Government which had accorded reservation to it. "The Centre did it and the State Government followed,'' he asserted. He did not directly respond to the query whether the Jats still continued to be against the Congress in Rajasthan.

A group of youth led Satveer Katewa, the State general secretary of the Rashtriya Lok Dal of Ajit Singh protested at the gate of the Press Club against Dr.Pilania terming their leader an "outsider'' as he came out at the end of the programme.

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