2016 stir impacted Jind

Sushil Manav & Deepender Deswal

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 3

The Jat quota violence that claimed 30 lives in February 2016 apparently led to sharp division of voters on caste lines in Haryana, much to the disadvantage of Jat candidates, if the polling trends in the Jind bypoll are any indication. 

The caste factor in the voting pattern of the January 28 bypoll was more evident than in the elections of the past. Though politicians cutting across party lines have always been playing the caste card, the agitation by the Jats for the Other Backward Classes (OBC) quota and the subsequent violence in February 2016, appears to have prompted people belonging to Backward Classes and Scheduled Castes to vote for the BJP.

While the Jats in majority voted for JJP candidate Digvijay Chautala or else Congress candidate Randeep Surjewala and INLD’s Umed Redhu, all three Jats, the non-Jats voted for BJP candidate Krishan Middha, a non-Jat.

The voting trends in the Jind bypoll, right from booth number one and two in Jat-dominated Raichandwala village, indicated that the BJP was getting substantial votes.  The BJP got 245 and 127 votes while the JJP secured 191 and 280 votes, respectively, at the two booths.

Villagers informed The Tribune that while a majority of the Jats voted for Digvijay, some favoured Surjewala and Redhu, while the Dalit and BCs/ OBCs votes largely went to Middha. In Kandela, another Jat-dominated village, the BJP got a respectable number of votes. Here, too, the trends indicated that while Digvijay polled a majority of the Jat votes, the non-Jat votes went to Middha.

“In the past elections, Dalits, BCs and OBCs cast their votes to the Congress, but now they went with the non-Jat BJP leader,” said a villager.

Some local leaders of non-Jat voters The Tribune spoke to said the new voting trends were the result of the violence by Jat quota agitators in February 2016 during which 30 people lost their lives and public and private property worth several thousand crores was set on fire by arsonists.

“This is not in Jind alone. You will witness similar polarisation across the state during the parliamentary and Assembly elections this year,” said a political observer.

A senior Jat leader from the Congress while requesting anonymity admitted that a sharp division of voters between Jats and non-Jats was directly attributable to the February 2016 violence. “This will harm Jat politicians in future elections too, as Jats constitute merely 22 per cent of the population,” he said.