New Delhi: The BJP’s decision to field reel life Border protagonist Sunny Deol in the real-life border constituency of Gurdaspur might look scripted to suit its hyper-nationalist narrative, but there is much more to it.
Deol’s candidature is another attempt by the BJP to address what has been its perennial concern — the party’s inability to produce Jat leaders, which leaves it politically hamstrung in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and western Uttar Pradesh.
Although the BJP has swept this region, except Punjab, in elections since Narendra Modi’s advent at the national stage in late 2013, the dearth of Jat leaders with mass base remains a challenge. Political scientist Suhas Palshikar attributes it to the BJP’s traditional image as an upper caste party as also to the fact that Jats have always had their “own politics of an independent kind”.
Social historians and political scientists attribute the BJP’s failure to develop leadership among Jats to the fact that the community was for long under the influence of stalwarts such as Charan Singh, Devi Lal and Mahendra Singh Tikait and has remained loyal to their political successors.
Read more: Sunny Deol triggers resentment in BJP as party faces rebellion across Punjab & Chandigarh
The attempt to promote Jat leaders
Deol is the latest in a series of attempts by the BJP to promote Jat leaders. His father, Dharmendra, was elected party MP from Bikaner in 2004 but had a rather forgettable stint; his tenure is remembered by the posters about the ‘missing MP’ in the border district of Rajasthan.
Dharmendra is now canvassing for his wife, actor and BJP leader Hema Malini, a Tamil Brahmin, in the Jat-dominated areas of Mathura in Uttar Pradesh.
Compelled to confine itself to urban areas in Punjab by the Shiromani Akali Dal, its ally since 1996, the BJP has always looked up to actors and sportspersons as its representatives among Jats in Punjab.
Wrestler Dara Singh joined the party in 1998 and was nominated to the Rajya Sabha by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 2003. But the late wrestler-actor, who served as the president of the Jat Mahasabha, couldn’t do much to expand his party’s influence in the community. The BJP then found another Jatt Sikh, cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu, who looked promising as a politician but the party managed to lose him to the Congress in 2017.
The BJP’s desperate hunt for towering Jat leaders hasn’t produced great results in other states either.
Strides in Rajasthan
The party made a huge dent in the Congress’ vote-bank among Jats in Rajasthan after Vajpayee announced reservation for them in 1999. It made further inroads after Vasundhara Raje’s appointment as Rajasthan BJP chief in 2002.
A scion of the Scindia family of Marathas, Raje projected herself as a “Jat bahu (daughter-in-law)” as she was married into the erstwhile Jat royalty of Dholpur. She took a number of steps to woo the community, inducting Sanwarlal Jat and Digambar Singh into her cabinet while getting two Rajya Sabha terms for former state DGP and Jat Mahasabha patron, Gyan Prakash Pilania, and fielding former Congress leader Sonaram as the BJP candidate against Jaswant Singh in Barmer.
By the end of her second term as chief minister in 2018, though, the BJP was struggling to retain its support base among Jats. Subhash Maharia, a minister in Vajpayee government, joined the Congress in 2016. Sanwarlal and Digambar Singh passed away in 2017. Sonaram has been denied ticket in this election. As it is, the BJP has no big Jat leader in Rajasthan today even as it seeks to piggyback on former BJP leader Hanuman Beniwal’s Rashtriya Loktantrik Party to secure Jat votes in the Lok Sabha elections.
Similar story in Haryana
In Haryana, the tallest BJP leader today is Choudhury Birendra Singh, grandson of Sir Chhotu Ram, a prominent Jat leader in pre-Independence India. A Congressman for about four decades, Birendra Singh had defected to the BJP in August 2014. He, however, doesn’t have the mass appeal to get Jat votes for the party across Haryana.
The same is the case with state finance minister Captain Abhimanyu. In western Uttar Pradesh, two prominent Jat leaders from the BJP are union minister Satyapal Singh and former minister Sanjeev Balyan. They had won the last Lok Sabha elections, riding on the ‘Modi wave’, and in the backdrop of Jat-Muslim rift following 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, their hold on their community is in for a test in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Professor Badri Narayan, director at G.B. Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad, is of the view that the BJP hasn’t had towering Jat leaders because the party has an urban middle-class character while Jats associate with the rural areas.
He, however, sees this changing with sections of Jats showing an inclination to embrace the BJP. He attributes it to the changing class character of the BJP and doesn’t subscribe to the view that it is because of Modi and so could be temporary.
“The BJP is changing its character. It’s no longer a party of upper castes only,” Narayan told ThePrint. “You can see how the BJP and even the RSS have been promoting backward class leaders.”
According to Ms Swati Chaturvedi – who seems to be remarkably well informed – gentleman was financially stranded, has been thrown a lifeline.
Mr Singh, if what your title suggests is based on inside information, I am really glad that BJP has such illusionary beliefs. Even Sunny Deol will find it difficult to believe that he has the potential to be a leader for Jats in the North.