BJP faces Jat ire for replacing OP Dhankar as Haryana chief — ‘history of unfair treatment’

Jats are estimated to form 22-23% of Haryana’s population & hold sway over its politics. BJP’s decision to replace O.P. Dhankar has triggered accusations of it being ‘anti-Jat’.

O.P Dhankar | Credit: Twitter/@OPDhankar

Gurugram: The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) decision to replace its Haryana chief Om Prakash Dhankar has upset a section of the state’s politically influential Jats. 

Last week, the BJP announced it was replacing Dhankar, a Jat leader and former state minister, with Kurukshetra MP Nayab Singh Saini, who is an OBC. Dhankar has now been appointed the party’s national secretary.

The decision came ahead of next year’s parliamentary and Haryana assembly elections. It follows the party’s decision to replace another Jat leader, Satish Poonia, as its Rajasthan chief, which has also caused some rancour within the BJP.

Jats are estimated to constitute 22-23 percent of Haryana’s population and hold significant sway in 40 of the state’s 90 assembly seats.

Jat khaps (khaps are caste-based social groups) view Dhankar’s exit as the BJP’s lack of fondness for the caste group. 

Yudhvir Singh Dhankar, president of the Dhankar khap, told ThePrint that although appointments were the BJP’s “internal matter”, the manner of replacing O.P. Dhankar was “surprising and shocking”. Dhankar khap has its headquarters in Jhajjar’s Dawla village and has members in 12 villages — including Dhankar’s native Dhakla.

“It’s surprising because O.P. Dhankar worked hard to strengthen the party’s grassroots panna pramukh system. It’s shocking because the BJP has replaced him with a non-Jat to divide voters on caste lines,” Yudhvir Dhankar said. 

Political analyst Ajay Deep Lathar, who also belongs to the community, said it was no coincidence that both Dhankar and Poonia have been removed from their positions just ahead of the elections. 

“Both have been replaced ahead of the 2024 elections. When you see the two replacements together, it seems that the BJP makes its leaders from the Jat community work hard and when the time comes to reap the harvests of that hard labour, the party pulls the chair from beneath them,” said Lathar.

But Dhankar himself doesn’t appear to give too much weight to the subject. Speaking to the media after he was replaced as the state BJP chief on 27 October, he described politics as “saanp seedi ka khel (game of snakes and ladders)”, and said he had been appointed BJP’s national secretary “which is a bigger and a national-level responsibility”.

In somewhat similar remarks, he told ThePrint that roles in the BJP were part of a “sehaj prakirya (spontaneous process)”.

“In the more than four decades of my political life, I have been given the role of the national president of Kisan Morcha, national coordinator of the Statue of Unity (project), cabinet minister, state party president, and many more positions. In 2002, I was appointed national secretary of the BJP. Now, once again I am the national secretary. The roles keep on changing,” he said. 

The BJP also dismissed allegations of the party being “anti-Jat”. Sanjay Sharma, the spokesperson of Haryana BJP, told ThePrint that the party doesn’t “believe in caste or religion politics”.

“Our Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar gave the slogan of ‘Haryana Ek, Haryanvi Ek (One Haryana, united Haryanvis)’ the day he took over. Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the slogan of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas (aiding everyone’s growth),” Sharma said.

‘Could cost election’

Jats don’t form the BJP’s traditional voter base in Haryana. 

In the 2014 assembly election, Jats voted for the BJP in large numbers, but, in 2019, they largely turned against the ruling party and were divided among the Congress, the Jannayak Janta Dal, and the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), which won 30, 10, and one seats, respectively.

This led to the defeat of the BJP’s Jat stalwarts, including state cabinet ministers Captain Abhimanyu and O.P Dhankar, former Union minister Birender Singh’s wife Prem Lata, and then-state BJP president Subhash Barala.

Yudhvir Singh Dhankar of the Dhankar khap said Jats don’t vote based on caste and religion.

“People of 36 biradaris (all of the state’s communities) in Haryana live in harmony and their vote is issue- or ideology-based,” he said.

Soon after O.P. Dhankar was replaced, a message on a Jat-majority WhatsApp group comprising retired technocrats and civil servants compared him to Agniveers — the soldiers recruited under the Modi government’s controversial short-term military recruitment policy, Agnipath.

Lathar, an admin of the group, drew parallels between the cases of Dhankar and Satish Poonia. 

“As the state BJP president, Poonia worked hard to expose Rajasthan’s Ashok Gehlot government and brought the BJP to a place where the party is considered close to defeating the Congress. But the top leadership of the BJP replaced him months before the assembly elections (in November). Similarly, Dhankar worked hard to strengthen the BJP in Haryana, but he too has been replaced in an election year,” Lathar said, adding that there were other examples of the BJP’s “unfair treatment” of Jat leaders. 

“When Birender Singh, then a Union Minister, wanted a ticket for his son from Hisar parliamentary seat, he was asked to resign from his Rajya Sabha seat. But the same yardstick was not applied to Rajnath Singh, whose son Pankaj Singh is MLA from the Noida assembly seat,” he said.

Likewise, he said, the BJP “used” Captain Abhimanyu for campaigning during elections in other states but when it came to a Rajya Sabha nomination, he wasn’t considered. 

“Now, Chaudhary Bhupendra Singh (Uttar Pradesh) and Sunil Jakhar (Punjab) are two other Jat leaders who have been made president of the BJP in their respective states. But whether the party will go to the polls under their leadership, it is not sure,” he added. 

Political analyst Hemant Atri said some caste and religious groups have limited roles to play in the BJP’s current scheme of things. The Jats, he said, is one such group.

“The whole politics of the BJP rests on anti-Jat agenda in certain states and anti-Muslim agenda in others,” Atri told ThePrint. “The replacement of Dhankar with Nayab Singh Saini leaves no one in doubt that the BJP is planning to play a non-Jat card in the 2024 elections, particularly in the assembly elections.”

A senior Jat leader from the BJP said the Dhankar decision at this critical juncture could cost the party next year’s election. This leader, who didn’t want to be named, said while Jats were never the BJP’s core vote bank, the party had the support of 10-15 percent of the caste group.

“Out of the 6,200-odd villages of Haryana, there are over 2,000 villages with a high concentration of Jat voters, and if the BJP loses the support of the 10 to 15 percent Jats it enjoys, the party won’t even be able to have election agents in these villages, let alone getting votes,” he said.

While having a state party chief who complies with the state’s chief minister is a practice that’s seen in the Congress, the BJP has always had state party chiefs with a strong following, he said. “The BJP has now also chosen to go the Congress way,” he added.

(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)