On a day when Jat leaders led by Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda hailed Congress president Sonia Gandhi for according reservation for Jats in nine States, former Punjab Chief Minister Amrainder Singh termed the Centre’s move ‘unfair and discriminatory’.
In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, in his capacity as the president of All India Jat Mahasabha, Amarinder Singh said national decisions cannot be applied ‘selectively’ and requested them to extend Jat reservation to Punjab and three other States.
A delegation of Akhil Bhartiya Jat Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti led by Hooda and several other khap panchyats thanked Gandhi at her residence and also hailed the Central Government’s decision of recommending reservation for the community in Central Government jobs and educational institutions. The khaps had warned that the community may boycott the Congress Government in the 2014 Parliamentary polls, if jats were not granted reservation at the central level. With an apparent attempt to woo Jats ahead of the lok Sabha polls, the centre granted them reservation in Central Government jobs last week.
The sarv khap panchayat said the decision to include the community among the OBC is the result of multiple agitations led by the community during which they had to face hardships. The Hooda khap said it was Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who united Jat leaders to put pressure on the Centre for seeking reservation.
Singh has also said the reservation should be based on the caste and not on religious basis, as Sikh and Muslim jats have been excluded from the benefit at several places. In his letter to the PM, Singh said, jats have presence in 13 States of the country. He demanded that the benefit should also be extended to Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.
Singh said that no national decision can be made for a part of the community falling within the part of the country. In this case, he added, jats be they Hindus, Sikhs or Muslims have been “divided on national basis which is unjust and unfair”. Singh had also written to Congress president Sonia Gandhi on the same issue and stated the move as arbitrary and viewed as a partisan attitude.