SHAMLI/BAGHPAT/MUZZAFARNAGAR: It is the battle for legacies in Jat-Muslim-dominated western Uttar Pradesh that goes to the polls on February 10. The fight is between “work done” by Babaji (as UP CM Yogi Adityanath is known in the state) and legacies of two Jat leaders — former prime minister Chaudhary Charan Singh and Mahendra Singh Tikait. There is perceptible anger among farmers against the BJP.
The ‘baap-dada’ (elders) allegiance runs deep among the people in Baghpat, Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, and Meerut. The communal narrative changed things electorally in 2013 with Jats voting en masse for the BJP. About 90 per cent of Jats in western UP voted for the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The figure was 77 per cent in the 2017 Assembly elections.
This time the communal divide appears to have narrowed with the farmer agenda ruling the Jat minds. Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait has repeatedly called for ‘punishing the BJP’. This could sway a section of Jats towards the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), an SP ally.
Chaudhary Rajveer Baliyan, who was at the Gazipur border for 10 months during the farmers’ agitation, says that the protest brought about a loyalty change for Jats and that most of them would now abide by Tikait’s call.
“He (Tikait) is the head of our clan and is very respectable to us. We will do whatever he says. When the Yogi government has shut its eyes on farmers, then how can they see the problems faced us?” asks Baliyan, 65, as he is busily cuts the sugarcane crop. He comes from Muzaffarnagar.
Many in the community remember former PM Chaudhary Charan Singh’s work and his son and former Union minister Ajit Singh. “All sugar mills in the region are because of him,” says Rajender Singh, a farmer from Baraut seat in Baghpat.
A section of the people are upset that neither Ajit nor his son Jayant turned up after the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots to meet the affected families. Jayant is now leading the RLD. “Sonia Gandhi came and met Muslim families but there was none to back us.
Our leader (Ajit) also left us. It was the BJP that took up our case. ‘Babaji’ has taken several steps to benefit farmers. Ration has been available during Covid and law and order has improved in the region. We respect our farmer leaders but will vote for the party that stands behind us when we need it,” says Vijender Singh, who comes from the Kairana constituency in Shamli, a hub of the 2013 riots.
The people irrespective of their loyalties, however, never fail to mention there is a ‘kante ki takkar’ (neck-and-neck) between the SP-RLD and BJP in west UP, but the former will have an edge.