28% Jat votes crucial in bypoll

Deepender Deswal

Tribune News Service

Hisar, January 13

The results of the elections to the Jind Assembly seat has been circumventing caste demography for the last 42 years. Though the constituency comprising Jind town and 35 villages is considered a Jat stronghold, non-Jat candidates had won the seat consecutively since 1972.

The high-stake poll battle is witnessing a keen contest among mainly the ruling BJP, Congress, INLD, Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) and fledgling Loktantra Suraksha Party (LSP) candidates. Of these, the BJP and the LSP have fielded non-Jat candidates Krishan Lal Middha and Vinod Asri, respectively, while the candidates of the Congress (Randeep Surjewala), INLD (Umed Redhu) and the JJP (Digvijay Chautala) are Jat. A total of 35 candidates are in the fray. Jats comprising around 28 per cent voters is a crucial vote bank in the byelection.

The last time a Jat leader won from Jind was Chaudhary Dal Singh. He won the seat in the 1972 Assembly election as the Congress (S) candidate. A four-time MLA, Dal Singh, won the seat on the Congress ticket in 1952, 1954, and 1962 and as the Congress (S) candidate in 1972.

However, 1977 onward, non-Jat candidates won the seat. Significantly, the candidates belonging to the Bania caste have won the seat six times, Punjabi twice and Kumhar (Backward Caste) once, since 1977.

The Jind seat has around 169,210 voters in Jind town and adjoining rural areas.

Political experts say that the Assembly segment has about 28 per cent Jat voters, around 9 per cent Brahman and Punjabi each, 8 per cent Bania, besides Other Backward Castes and Scheduled Castes.

“With the biggest vote share, Jats apparently are the deciding factor in Jind. However, the regional Jat leadership could not emerge after Chaudhary Dal Singh. In such a scenario, Jats opted to go with non-Jat leaders election after election, which is evident from the poll outcome,” says Pawan Kumar Bansal, a political expert.

“However, this time, the Congress has fielded a prominent Jat leader in a hope to polarise Jat voters in its favour. But Digvijay Chautala and Umed Redhu fighting the byelection has put Jat voters in a dilemma,” says Bansal, adding that the BJP nominee stands a chance in the byelection in case Jat votes get split in favour three Jat leaders and LSP candidate Asri (a Brahman) fails to put up a fight.