The Jat community is itching to end its brief dalliance with the BJP, but it is also upset with the Congress, the party they have traditionally supported, for not giving them their due, reports Archis Mohan.
BIf you know this BJP, it will now go forward to Jharkhand and Maharashtra as if June 2024 never happened, notes Shekhar Gupta.
Congress candidates lost their security deposits on all but three seats in the Delhi assembly polls as nearly 80 per cent of all contenders, including those contesting independently, forfeited their deposits.
Reaching out to Jats, a politically crucial community in western Uttar Pradesh, Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah has presented his party as the best bet for them, saying voting for the Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal or any other party would not help their cause.
Unprecedented violence... Mobs determined to teach Delhi a lesson... An incompetent chief minister... Losses of over Rs 200 billion. Haryana's Jat agitation has a somber message for the nation.
>The Indian Army still uses old British-era names and recruits soldiers based on caste or region, which hurts national unity, argues Colonel K Thammayya Udupa (retd).
When the assembly election comes around later this year with Nayab Singh Saini, from the OBCs, at the helm, the sense of victimhood non-Jats feel will propel the BJP into power again, predicts Aditi Phadnis.
The high court passed the order while hearing a petition challenging the constitutional validity of The Haryana Backward Classes (reservation in services and admission in educational institutions) Act 2016 that was passed unanimously by the state assembly on March 29.
Sporadic incidents of arson were on Monday reported as life in violence-torn Haryana limped back to normal with curfew being lifted gradually and Jat protesters starting to lift blockades after the Bharatiya Janata Party announced setting up of a committee to examine the quota demand of the community.
A day before Rajasthan goes to polls, the ambivalence of Jats, the traditional support base of Congress, is giving the party jitters while the Bharatiya Janata Party is hoping to corner a significant chunk of their votes to stage a comeback to power.
A court in Punjab's Mohali has sentenced self-styled pastor Bajinder Singh to life imprisonment in a 2018 rape case. The court of Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Vikrant Kumar pronounced the verdict on Tuesday. Bajinder was found guilty under sections 376 (rape), 323 (punishment for voluntary causing hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code. The case was registered on a complaint filed by a woman at the Zirakpur police station in Mohali in 2018.
Congress leader Sukhjinder Randhawa and Brahm Mohindra will be two deputies to Punjab's Chief Minister-designate Charanjit Singh Channi, said party leader Pawan Kumar Bansal.
Internet and mobile SMS services have been suspended indefinitely by authorities in Rohtak district in the wake of protests by Jat community.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed the Centre's review petition on the Jat reservation issue which demanded a review of the apex court's previous order scrapping Jat reservation.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is set to form its government in Delhi after winning the recent assembly elections. Party leaders have stated that the new chief minister should be chosen from the elected BJP MLAs, with several contenders emerging from the newly-elected members. The decision on the next chief minister is expected to be made after Prime Minister Narendra Modi returns from his foreign visit around February 15.
A land-owning class, the Jats are a powerful community and account for 28 per cent of Haryana's population. The time, they believe, has now come for them to take revenge.
With the Jat agitation showing no signs of let up, the BJP government in Haryana on Saturday said it has "accepted" the demands of the community.
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday refused to vacate the stay granted by it last month on Haryana government's decision to grant reservation to Jats.
Explaining the rationale behind his statement, Chaudhary said, "Lord Ram's wife, goddess Sita, was abducted by Ravan, but Lanka was burnt by Hanumanji. It's injustice being done to someone by someone and the third person does not know either of them. This is the nature of Jats... they intervene whenever any injustice is done to anybody."
The Narendra Modi government on Monday supported the United Progressive Alliance regime's decision to include the Jat community in the central Other Backward Classes list for providing reservation and refuted the allegation in the Supreme Court that it was done to gain political mileage in the general elections.
"Centre and state will soon begin the process of giving reservation, following the Delhi High court order," Khattar told reporters in a joint press conference along with All India Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti chairperson Yashpal Malik.
'Even if a dog dies, a condolence message is sent by Delhi leaders. But I am hurt that 600 farmers have died but no resolution was passed in Parliament'
Instead of harvesting the wrath against the BJP and using it to their advantage by opting for a collective form of leadership, the Congress decided once again to bestow their trust in the Hooda family who were given a free hand in the distribution of tickets. This turned out to be the biggest blunder and this faulty selection was the single over riding factor in the Congress defeat, explains Rashme Sehgal.
Roads leading to the protest hub were packed with Jat agitators from Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Delhi and Punjab, giving a tough time to motorists and commuters.
BJP leaders from a dominant farming community in Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh held separate meetings on Wednesday to chalk up an outreach to members of the Jat community and caste councils (khaps) to counter the narrative against the Centre's three farm laws.
Congress leaders, on their part, are confident that the mobilisation of voters away from the BJP will gain more momentum in the state elections, scheduled for October 1, in the absence of national issues and the 'Modi factor'.
President Droupadi Murmu has approved gallantry awards to 93 armed forces personnel, including two Kirti Chakras and 14 Shaurya Chakras, on the eve of Republic Day. The Kirti Chakras, India's second-highest peacetime gallantry award, have been awarded to Major Manjit from 22 Rashtriya Rifles and posthumously to Naik Dilwar Khan, 28 Rashtriya Rifles. The president also approved 305 defense decorations to Armed Forces and other personnel.
Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini has reached out to the SCs and the poor with the accelerated implementation of various schemes, especially the B R Ambedkar housing scheme.
Giving this information at Chandigarh, a government spokesman said that more companies of the paramilitary forces have been demanded by the state.
Around 200 paramilitary personnel were on Saturday airlifted to Rohtak in Haryana from Chandigarh after Jat protesters blocked roads following fresh incidents of violence.
'The bad dream can turn into a ghoulish nightmare for the BJP if the Gujjars in Rajasthan and the Patels in Gujarat, both BJP-ruled states, were to fish in troubled waters and relaunch their respective agitations for quotas in government jobs,' warns Rajeev Sharma.
Jats demanding quota in government jobs occupied 14 railway tracks in Haryana on Wednesday as part of their agitation badly disrupting train services in the region.
Hundreds of members of the Jat community led by Harayana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Monday met Rahul Gandhi to thank him after the Cabinet asked the backward classes commission to expeditiously take a call on providing reservation to the community in central government jobs.
...'hum decide karenge kaun banega mukhyamantri. This decision is not to be taken in Mumbai.'
The BJP's nationwide vote share saw its steepest decline in Rajasthan, falling by 9.23% from 2019, resulting in the loss of 11 seats.
Ahead of the upcoming Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati has put a new caste card into play by announcing her support to the ongoing agitation by the Jat community in the western parts of the state. Mayawati on Monday made it loud and clear that she was going to back the Jats in pushing their demand for declaring the community a backward class.
One of the eye witnesses of the Murthal gang-rapes, which took place during the Jat agitation, has claimed that he was threatened for 'speaking too much'.
Prohibitory orders banning assembly of five or more persons have also been issued by some district authorities, including Sonipat, as a precautionary measure to maintain peace.
The situation on Tuesday remained tense in some parts of Jat dominated areas like Rohtak and Sonipat while curfew was lifted in Jind district.
Jat leaders have blamed Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar for not fulfilling their quota demands for which they launched a massive stir last year.
