Ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections slated to be held next year, the self-proclaimed election experts, staunchly against BJP have come up with another ludicrous assessment to try and change the tide. Ever since the ‘Kisan Mahapanchayat’ was organised in UP’s Muzaffarnagar district, the said experts have conjured up a new electoral dynamic called the Jat-Muslim vote bank which has allegedly coalesced together in the backdrop of fake farmer’s protest. One of the left publications appeared trying excessively hard to bring the imaginary alliance to fruition. The farcical op-ed read, “The farmer movement has given the Jats and Muslims a common cause against the BJP, and they are firmly leaving behind the bitterness of the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013.”
Rakesh Tikait and Allah Hu Akbar chants
The sudden surfacing of Muslim-Jat bonhomie comes in the backdrop of Rakesh Tikait, an accused in the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots chanting ‘Allah Hu Akbar’ during the Mahapanchayat rally. In the garb of farmer’s protest, multi-millionaire Tikait is looking to thrust himself into the regional politics of the state.
His endgame is to contest the elections and somehow get himself voted to the Vidhan Sabha. Using the Muslim slogans is simply a ‘means to an end’ for Tikait but the liberal media has extrapolated it otherwise.
Jats back the BJP
While Dalit-Muslim, Yadav-Muslim could be termed as the precursor of the gimmick dynamic – the on-ground reality is starkly different. The Jats of the state are strongly backing BJP to come to power again. It’s not hollow rhetoric, albeit the truth backed up by figures and numbers.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, 71 per cent of Jats had voted for the BJP, which increased to 91 per cent in 2019. Similarly, in the assembly elections in 2012, the saffron party won only 38 out of 110 seats in western UP.
However, when the Yogi Tsunami swept the state in 2017, the tally increased to 88. Overall, BJP received a gigantic mandate by securing a 41.4 per cent vote share, which translated to the party winning 325 seats in a 403-member state assembly. The rise of the BJP strengthened by the Jat vote bank suggests the Jat Muslim alliance is just a hoax.
Jats haven’t forgotten the Muzaffarnagar riots
Moreover, the Jats haven’t forgotten the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, even though the liberal media casually sweeps it under the carpet. The Jats against whom false cases were filed in the riots were withdrawn immediately by the Yogi government, once it came to power. Since then, the Jats have had a positive reaffirmation towards Yogi due to his kind gesture.
While Yogi helped the Jats, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, drenched in his minority appeasement politics objected to the decision of the Yogi government, further suggesting where his true allegiances lie.
The Yogi government recently passed two litmus tests by winning block pramukh (Block panchayat chief) and Zila Panchayat Adhyaksh (District Council President) elections. There are 825 posts of block panchayat chief in the state, of which, the BJP won 648 seats and the Samajwadi Party came a distant second with 103 seats.
Western UP is dominated by the Jats and recently the Yogi government hiked the Remunerative Price (FRP) of sugar to Rupees 290 per quintal. The increase in FRP for sugar would bring the Jat farmers even closer to BJP. The sugarcane farmers were glad about the fact the ethanol blending in petroleum and incentivization of exports boosted their income in the last few months. The increase in FRP is another step that strengthens their loyalties to the party.
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Yogi is bringing prosperity to the Jatland in western Uttar Pradesh — from Jewar Airport to the announcement of the construction of Noida Film City, to providing state of the art facilities and on-time payment to sugarcane farmers, the Jat’s have heavily benefitted from Yogi’s rise in the state.
The idea behind Jat-Muslim unity is simple. Peddle a myth incessantly and hope that something sticks in the end. However, Yogi, unlike his communal predecessors relies on his developmental work more than anything to garner the votes. And that is something that the liberal media has failed to take into consideration while positing its lousy theory.