Lok Sabha polls 2019: Jaats turn away from BJP and Modi in western Uttar Pradesh

At a roadside dhaba on the Bijnor bypass, we chat up the friendly and talkative owner Subodh Baliyan. All the surrounding land belonged to his family, he informed and declared that it was a good decision to start the ‘dhaba’ , Govardhan Bhojanalaya, barely a few months ago. It was already doing well, he volunteers.

What about the election? His smile grows bigger as he informs that just the day before the sitting BJP MP Sanjeev Baliyan had visited his home to canvass support. “He is a childhood friend. We studied together in the school where my father was the English teacher and we shared the same mat,” he says before revealing that he had expressed his inability to help his childhood friend.

But why? “I never sought his help for any personal work. But I did approach him on behalf of others who needed help. But he did not respond positively,” he explains. But a far more compelling reason is the fact that Chaudhary Ajit Singh, known among the Jaats as the Chhote Chaudhary, is the SP-BSP Gathbandhan’s candidate from Muzaffarnagar.

Chaudhary Charan Singh had contested from here some 41 years ago and had lost. But this time the Jaats seem determined to make amends. “Chaudhary Charan Singh is widely respected in the community and this time Jaats will stand by Ajit Singh,” declared Subodh Baliyan confidently.

“My heart is with the BJP, but we must vote in national interest,” he added enigmatically. While caste interest may coincide with national interest, it was clear that there was no Modi wave on the ground.

The scars of Muzaffarnagar riots are still there. But both Jaats and the Muslims appear to have moved on. “The riots were confined to 12 villages and three police stations and it was engineered by outsiders,” insists a Muslim voter, who blamed the media for giving a distorted picture, for spreading panic and exaggerating the communal divide.

As we moved from one village to another, it was unsettling to find elderly Jaat villagers making fun of Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

At Gadanpura, a village in the Khatouli Assembly constituency, inhabited by Jaats, Sainis and Dalits, a group of Jaats engaged in leisurely post-lunch conversation, readily agree that they had all voted for the BJP in 2014. “But not again,” declares one of them emphatically while others nod in agreement.

A major grievance is the menace of stray cattle with discarded cows and bulls destroying their wheat crops. “We call the bulls Modi and Yogi,” says a toothless Jaat even as others break into raucous laughter. But they react violently when asked if there weren’t Gaushalas to look after the stray cattle. A torrent of abuse follows the reply in the negative.

Asked if they were not impressed with the Government’s cash transfer to the farmers (Kisan Samman Nidhi), they agree that some of them had received two thousand Rupees in their bank account. Others, who were possibly not eligible, did not. But both groups seemed dissatisfied.

“We are not beggars. What do they know? By giving us Rupees two thousand, they think they can buy our loyalty? Do they even know how much we pay for water and electricity?” responded one of them angrily.

“We want payment for our sugarcane. But the sugar mills and the Government have not cleared even last year’s dues,” complained another member of the group. Someone interjects to point out that both Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav as chief ministers had increased the procurement price of sugarcane. But the Yogi Government has not bothered to do so during the past two years.”

The nightmare of Demonetisation is also not forgotten. The group recalls a wedding in the village soon after Demonetisation. They were all praise for the groom and his family, who agreed to come for the wedding with just five ‘Baratis’. But they are now convinced that it served no purpose.

What do they think of the terror attack at Pulwama and the retaliatory air strike by India? Several members of the group start speaking at once. An influential Jaat waves them to silence before declaring that it was all ‘engineered’. “Why is it that all terror attacks take place before elections?” he asked.

Both Demonetisation and GST, so-called historic reforms which are completely missing from BJP’s campaign, have hit traders in Muzaffarnagar and Saharanpur hard. A quarter of craftsmen engaged in making handicrafts in cottage industries have been forced to look for other occupation, informs a timber trader. Many of them have been forced to drive e-rickshaws. Even bigger businesses have suffered and both production and exports have fallen, they confided.

Jaats in Western Uttar Pradesh, a sizeable number of them, seem to be rallying round the opposition this time. These are early days but unless things shift dramatically before polling day, the Bharaiya Janata Party is in for some rude shock.