Lucknow: In a major setback to BJP, the All India Jat Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti, which is better known as the Jat Samiti in Meerut, announced their support to the SP-BSP alliance in Uttar Pradesh for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Declaring that the Jats will oppose the BJP in all constituencies of UP, the Samiti said that it felt cheated by the Narendra Modi-led government for not accepting its reservation demand and implementing 10% reservation for the upper class within seven days.
The head of the Samiti, Yashpal Malik, announced on Tuesday that they will be supporting BSP-SP’s Haji Yaqoob Qureshi in the strategically important Meerut constituency of western UP, as “it will hurt BJP the most”. BJP has retained sitting MP Rajendra Agarwal from here.
“We will not be supporting BJP in the upcoming general election as we did in 2014. The BJP government has forgotten the promises it made to the Jat community on reservation. We feel betrayed,” he said at a press conference.
The community constitutes a sizeable amount of population in the western region, yielding influence over 20 Lok Sabha seats in the state. The past few years have seen persistent agitations by Jats, often turning violent, with its leaders also meeting with the PM in 2015 and BJP chief Amit Shah in 2017 to express their demands.
Taking a jibe at the saffron party on the looming job crisis in the country, the Jat leader added, “We were promised by PM Modi and Amit Shah that our demands for reservation will be met, but nothing has happened till date. Promises made to us languish unfulfilled just like BJP’s other promises on issues of unemployment.”
Manvendra Verma, the National Vice President of the Jat Samiti was also present at the occasion and said, “During the 2014 Lok Sabha Polls, Jats supported BJP and it came to power on almost all the seats in Western Uttar Pradesh. However now we feel ignored and cheated, hence we will ensure BJP loses this time.
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