Politics marked by paradoxes: Anatomy of BJP's ‘Jat dilemma'

The Print

2 days ago

The 8 August panchayat meeting presided over by Suresh Phogat, the president of the Phogat Khap, also saw participation of representatives from the Phogat, Sangwan, Sheoran, Haveli, Satgama, Chidiya, and Satgama khaps, and farmer groups and social organisations.
Terming it as an 'unimaginable insult', the khaps decided to honour Satya Pal Malik posthumously with the Bharat Samman Award given out by all North Indian khaps.
New Delhi: Days after Satya Pal Malik, the former governor of Jammu and Kashmir passed away, a Sarva Khap Panchayat was held at Charkhi Dadri in Haryana, where the BJP government was criticised for not extending state honours at Malik's funeral.
On the same day, the BJP expelled its Rajasthan unit spokesperson Krishna Kumar Janu, a Jat who earlier questioned the party's treatment of his community leaders. The issue has brought forth a 'Jat dilemma' within the BJP—a sort of politics marked by paradoxes like wooing the community in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan while seeking to mobilise non-Jats in Haryana.
In Punjab, the Jat Sikhs have always kept a distance from the BJP. The BJP's equations with the Jats, which started blooming after then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee promised OBC reservation to the community in Rajasthan in 1999, has been fraying, of late. The party did poorly in Jat-dominated areas in Haryana and Rajasthan in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. In this backdrop, ex-vice president Jagdeep Dhankhar's 'ouster' and the late Satya Pal Malik's soured relationship with the top BJP leadership now threaten to queer the pitch for the party.
The party showed its Jat spokesperson the door on 8 August after Krishna Kumar Janu highlighted what he has called the 'humiliating treatment' of Satya Pal Malik and Jagdeep Dhankhar, the two foremost Jat faces, by the BJP. A video showing Janu criticising the senior leadership was widely shared online, leading to his expulsion for six years.
Satya Pal Malik, who served as governor of several states and was once the BJP's national vice-president, died last week at 79 after a prolonged illness. He was the governor of Jammu and Kashmir when the Modi government invalidated Article 370 in 2019. Later, Satya Pal Malik occupied Raj Bhawans in Goa and Meghalaya before falling out with the BJP and becoming a bitter critic of the Narendra Modi-led government. Prominent BJP leaders stayed away from his funeral on 6 August.
Jagdeep Dhankhar's abrupt resignation on 21 July—purportedly forced on him by the BJP leadership—has also not gone down well with the Jat community, BJP leaders say. Many viewed the appointment of Jagdeep Dhankhar as V-P as the BJP acknowledging the importance of the Jat community, even though Dhankhar was not seen as a dominant Jat leader. Now, they are reading his removal in the same vein.
For years, the BJP has sought to give its Jat leaders key posts. For instance, Subhash Barala and O.P. Dhankar in Haryana, Satish Poonia in Rajasthan, Sanjeev Balyan and Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary in western Uttar Pradesh. However, the party's latest moves have reinforced a growing feeling among the Jats that the BJP is edging them out, in favour of OBC, Dalit, and upper-caste leaders, say BJP leaders.
When the BJP sidelined Satya Pal Malik, the Jats opposed his removal, and the party appointed Dhankar, then the Governor of West Bengal, as the V-P to cool down the situation. Now, Jagdeep Dhankhar is out too.
Tek Ram Kandela, the president of Kandela Khap in Haryana, told The Print that no love had been lost between the Haryana Khaps—or for that matter, the Jats—and Jagdeep Dhankhar when he was the VP. 'However, the way he was made to resign only shows how the BJP treats the Jats,' he said.
Yudhbir Dhankhar, the president of Dhankhar Khap in Haryana, accused the BJP of scripting the exit as part of a 'political game'. 'This party (BJP) is very alienated from this community,' he said, warning that the party will feel the consequences of how it dealt with Jagdeep Dhankhar in the future.
'For us, he is our brother from our 'gotra'. His resignation has sparked outrage among all khaps and members of the Jat community. When the party elevated him to the post of V-P, he should have been allowed to continue for a full term. Now, social media is buzzing with news, such as the sealing of his office. All this is not going down well with the community,' the khap leader said.
Roughly 2.5 percent of the national population, the Jats comprise a sizeable voter base. Moreover, the political clout of the community in UP, Rajasthan, and Haryana remains outsized and alienating it is risky. Janu's expulsion for speaking up for two of their most recognisable leaders has rekindled a debate within the BJP around its 'Jat dilemma', which leaders say is not likely to be resolved soon.
Jyoti Mishra, assistant professor of political science at Amity University, Mohali, and former researcher at Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), told The Print that the reason why the Jat community in Haryana has been distancing from the party is much deeper than just resentment over Jagdeep Dhankhar's exit.
'The Jat community's estrangement stems from an apparent loss of political control over the state under the BJP, where symbolic gestures like Jagdeep Dhankhar's exit as the V-P only reinforce their narrative of sidelining by a party that once courted their votes but now prioritises non-Jat interests,' said Mishra.
Also Read: 'Modi finished Army with Agniveer scheme, will end farming too' — Satya Pal Malik in Q&A with Rahul
Larger flashpoints in Haryana
The Jat discontent has roots in larger flashpoints. The community, with its deep agricultural link and influence in villages, did not respond well to the Centre's handling of the 2020-21 farmers' agitation, and the Agnipath recruitment plan introduced in June 2022. The BJP later rolled back the farm laws, but party insiders concede the damage had already been done and compounded by the lack of a single unifying Jat face in the BJP at the time.
Modi 3.0 now has only two Jat leaders as ministers of state. BJP's Ajmer MP Bhagirath Choudhary is MoS of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, and the Rashtriya Lok Dal leader Jayant Chaudhary is MoS of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. The dip in central representation is a cause of concern for the community.
The Modi 2.0 cabinet in 2019 also had only two Jats in MoS posts—Balyan Choudhary and Kailash Choudhary from Rajasthan.
ThePrint earlier reported how the 2019 cabinet, and the present one stands in sharp contrast to Vajpayee's cabinet from 1999 to 2004, with Rashtriya Lok Dal's Ajit Singh and BJP's Sahib Singh Verma as ministers, Vasundhara Raje Scindia, who married into a Jat family, as MoS, and RLD leader Sompal Singh Shastri also in the council of ministers in 1998.
The situation has changed drastically over time, and what is amply evident now is the Jat community's declining grip on Haryana, Rajasthan, and UP since 2014.
Ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Uttar Pradesh BJP entered an alliance with the Rashtriya Lok Dal, considering the Jat voters of western UP. However, several BJP leaders feel the party should, instead, strengthen its Jat leaders to ensure it will not have to rely on others. They cite the example of BJP leader Sanjeev Balyan, who defeated the RLD president Chaudhary Ajit Singh from the Muzaffarnagar Lok Sabha constituency in 2019.
Haryana is a state where the relative number of Jats is 22–27 percent of the state population. In the past, it had ensured their political predominance.
However, the BJP has, since 2014, put in place a deliberate policy of non-Jat consolidation, incrementally whittling away Jat representation, marginalising a community that long defined Haryana's agrarian and political identities. Ahead of the 2024 polls, the BJP even replaced O.P. Dhankar with OBC leader Nayab Saini as the Haryana BJP president.
Haryana's election to its 90-member legislative assembly has always seen a battle of caste-based manoeuvres from before the BJP's ascendence to power in 2014. The party's surge that year, riding the 'Modi wave', however, represented a conscious shift away from Jat politics. Contesting Haryana's 90 assembly constituencies, the BJP gave tickets to 24 Jats only. Six of them won and became MLAs, at a 24-25 percent success rate.
The Jat reservation agitation in 2016, when the Manohar Lal Khattar-led BJP regime was in power in Haryana, was a turning point in the relationship the community shared with the party.
The protests turned violent, resulting in the death of 30 people, besides losses in public and private properties. The Haryana government's heavy-handed response that followed deepened the already existing sense of alienation among the Jats in the backdrop of their diminishing cabinet representation.
Responding to the Jat agitation, the Haryana government deployed the Army and opened fire on protesters, fuelling resentment among the Jats. The controversial stance of BJP Kurukshetra MP Raj Kumar Saini, who opposed Jat reservations, further aggravated tensions.
The divide between the BJP and the Jat community increased further when the reservation bill, earlier promised by the party, faced legal hurdles, leaving the Jats feeling betrayed.
Earlier, Satya Pal Malik's critical remarks targeting Jagdeep Dhankhar, 'Tooti khat, aur jhhuka hua Jat kisi kaam ka nahi hota (A broken cot and a bent Jat are of no use),' resonated quite well with the Jats in Haryana. Afterwards, the removal of Jagdeep Dhankhar became a rallying point, heightening the grievances the Jats had against the BJP.
In the 2019 state elections, the BJP doubled down on its non-Jat strategy, decreasing its Jat candidates to 19. Only four won and became MLAs, achieving a 21 per cent success rate. Of them, the BJP named Jai Parkash Dalal as a Modi cabinet minister, besides inducting Kamlesh Dhanda as an MoS in the Manohar Lal Khattar cabinet. The state cabinet had two more Jat ministers, Deputy CM Dushyant Chautala from the JJP, the party then in a coalition with the BJP, and Ranjit Singh, who was among the six Independents, all of whom supported the BJP-JJP government.
The first Nayab Singh Saini cabinet, once he replaced Khattar in March 2024, maintained the same strength—one Jat cabinet minister and one MoS—though Mahipal Dhanda became MoS and Kamlesh Dhanda was removed from the MoS post. The number of Jat Ministers further reduced from four to three after the BJP broke its alliance with the Dushyant Chautala-led JJP.
Coming ahead of the 2024 general elections, the installation of OBC CM Nayab Singh Saini put a stamp on the resolve of the BJP towards OBC consolidation, with the party placing a premium on the community that constitutes roughly 30 percent of the national population, as well as the upper castes, over the Jats.
The BJP strengthened this strategy during the 2024 state polls by fielding only 16 Jat candidates. At a 38 percent success rate, six of them won and became MLAs.
In the current 14-member Saini-led Haryana cabinet, there are two Jat ministers, Mahipal Dhanda and Shruti Choudhry. Even before Saini became the CM, the BJP had made him party president, removing Jat leader Om Prakash Dhankar. From then on, Jat discontent had been simmering, with unresolved grievances from the 2023 wrestler protests against BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, the farmer protests and Agnipath fuelling their sentiment.
In the rural belt, including Rohtak and Jind, Jat farmers interpreted all the incidents as proof of the BJP ignoring their agricultural interests.
The BJP in Haryana was previously considered a party of traders and urban voters, with only a few Jat leaders in its cadre. At the time, leaders such as O.P. Dhankar and Subhash Barala formed the cadre, and they maintained a long association with the party's Kisan Morcha. During the Ram Mandir movement in the early 1990s, Captain Abhimanyu joined the party ranks. Jat leader Ram Chander Baina won the Lok Sabha election from Faridabad on a BJP ticket in 1996, 1998, and 1999. Jat leader Kishan Singh Sangwan won the 1998 Lok Sabha election from the Sonipat seat on an Indian National Lok Dal ticket, with INLD supremo Om Prakash Chautala 'lending' him to the BJP in 1999, when the seat went to the BJP quota. Kishan Singh Sangwan stayed on with the BJP and won the seat as its candidate in 2004. However, at 64, he died in December 2012. At 72, Ramchandra Bainda, a former BJP MP from Faridabad, passed away in 2018.
The distance between the Jats and the BJP in Haryana started to show in the early years of the Modi regime in the state as the Jat reservation agitation intensified. The BJP, however, attracted several Jat leaders ahead of the 2024 state assembly polls, including Kiran Choudhry and late Satpal Sangwan's son, Sunil Sangwan, who won from Charkhi Dadri.
Also Read: It was my turn. You overtook me: Wife Iqbal Malik to Satya Pal Malik
The situation in Punjab, Rajasthan & UP
In Punjab, the BJP has brought some prominent Jat leaders into its fold under a calculated outreach to counter its image of an 'urban' and Hindu-centric party. Prominent among them are Sunil Jakhar who left the Congress to join the BJP, Jat Sikhs Ravneet Bittu, Parneet Kaur, and Taranjit Singh Sandhu. These moves have been viewed as efforts that may resonate with the agrarian Jat community in Punjab.
However, scars of the 2020-21 farmers protest when Jat Sikh farmers were labelled as 'Khalistanis' by those considered close to the BJP.
The story is no different in Rajasthan. Many community leaders ThePrint spoke to feel they have been 'sidelined', especially since the 2023 assembly elections. The Jat community, a key vote bank in Rajasthan, is known to impact at least 50 of 200 assembly seats.
Soon after Dhankar's exit, the Opposition seized the opportunity, with Congress leaders pointing out how the BJP has been systematically sidelining the Jats. Govind Dotasra, the president of the Congress Rajasthan unit, who belongs to the community, pointed out that since Dhankar's resignation, there has been no prominent Jat leader from Rajasthan in any top constitutional or organisational post.
In the current Rajasthan cabinet, there are two Jat ministers, Kanhaiyalal Choudhary and Sumit Godara, and Jat leaders Jhabar Singh Kharra and Vijay Singh Chaudhary are ministers of state.
'As far as the party is concerned, it has given leaders at different levels positions, including vice-president and general secretary, but many see it as mere tokenism. Jyoti Mirdha is the state vice-president of the party, and Santosh Ahlawat is the general secretary,' said a senior BJP leader who pointed out the issue at hand is that currently, leaders belonging to the Jat community do not hold key posts.
In Rajasthan, the BJP suffered defeats in Jat-dominated seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
'After Dhankar's exit, we have no significant Jat leader who can unite the entire Jat community. With the national BJP president yet to be elected, new appointments will take place. Many hope that Satish Poonia from Rajasthan will get a national role. Similarly, at the state level, the party will constitute a new team as it is likely to induct more faces and give them charge,' said a senior BJP leader on the condition of anonymity.
In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP's tally dropped to 33 Lok Sabha seats in 2024 from 62 in 2019, as the party lost Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, and Bijnor—all seats with a sizeable Jat population. BJP hopes to address the issue by inducting more leaders from the Jat community at the organisational level.
Many Jat leaders have blamed community members—farmers and wrestlers in particular—for the BJP government's alleged indifferent treatment of the community, ticking off the Jats further.
Speaking to ThePrint, BJP Rajasthan spokesperson Laxmikant Bhardwaj said the Congress, seizing the opportunity, has been trying to mislead the public, even though the BJP has given due representation to the Jat community in the government as well as at organisational levels.
'If you talk about the government, in the cabinet itself, there is over 15 percent representation. Similarly, from the district level to the state level, at least 20% leaders belong to the Jat community. The BJP has always respected the community and has fielded many leaders from the community in the assembly as well as Lok Sabha elections,' he said.
Former CM of Rajasthan Vasundhara Raje, who married into a Jat family, has, of late, been credited with bringing new Jat leaders to the BJP fold. However, the BJP's Rahul Kaswan, who, along with his father Ram Singh Kaswan, won the Churu Lok Sabha seat five times, crossed over to the Congress and won ahead of the 2024 LS polls.
The BJP's Jat leaders in Uttar Pradesh include Bhupendra Chaudhary and Sanjeev Balyan.
Many BJP leaders use the example of Rahul Kaswan, who defected to the Congress before the 2024 general elections, to highlight how the party did not institute a second rung of Jat leadership in the state, which may prove to be an issue in reaching out to the community in future.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
Also Read: 'I'm neither one to fear nor one to bow down'—Satya Pal Malik, one of Modi govt's fiercest critics