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Congress confident of Jat votes

By K.V. Prasad

JIND (HARYANA), FEB. 1. The parivartan ki lehar (winds of change), the Congress is sensing in the Haryana Assembly elections is based on the calculation that the upper caste Jat vote, which moved away three decades ago, was gravitating towards the party.

Estimated to be 26 per cent of the population, the Jats have identified themselves with the erstwhile Lok Dal/Janata Party led by late Devi Lal. It was in 1977 that Devi Lal, fondly called `Tau' came to power in the State riding the `anti-Congress' wave after the 1975 Emergency. He later virtually carried the Jats with him and out of the Congress in 1980 he went with Charan Singh's Lok Dal. The Jat versus anti-Jat fights within the Congress became externalised.

Even though the Congress has had a fair share of leaders from this primarily land-holding community, the late Devi Lal and his son, the present Chief Minister, Om Prakash Chautala, provided leadership to this community. The parting of Bansi Lal, another Jat leader, and advent of Bhajan Lal as the leader of other communities accentuated the Jat versus non-Jat tussle. It is this return of the Jat vote that enthuses the Congress and the merger of Bansi Lal's Haryana Vikas Party has added to its calculation.

An opportunity

In the words of the former Haryana Congress chief, Birender Singh, this Assembly election results would provide the State an opportunity to bring together all communities. ``Not since 1977 have we seen the Jat community looking towards us and in my view this development has the potential to put an end to division on community lines. In fact, there is nothing called non-Jat. It has been Jats versus other communities that have been with the Congress,'' Birender Singh, a Jat himself, said.

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