Through her soft and suave political approach Iqra Hasan has succeeded in achieving wide-spread acceptability not only among Muslims but has become “affectionate daughter” of Hindu Gurjars also. After breakup of alliance with Jat-led Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) of Jayant Chaudhury after 2022 assembly election and victory of Iqra Hasan in 2024 Lok Sabha election, the Samajwadi Party has been making efforts to sew up a combination of Muslim-Gurjar-OBC in western UP. Iqra Hasan has become leading light in this drive as she has been quietly working in the community. The hostile personal comments of Nand Kishore against Iqra Hasan have given enough indication about desperation in Saffron brigade. The social media is full of the “Taus” of the community launching frontal attack on the BJP, writes M Hasan.
Lucknow, Oct 6: The rainbow coalition of Jat-Gurjar of ruling BJP in western Uttar Pradesh is on the rocks. The BJP’s desperate efforts to wedge animosity between Hindu Gurjars and Muslim Gurjars has led to sharp reaction in the powerful community. The BJP’s move is being seen as an attempt to keep Jat-Gurjar alliance intact by creating communal discord in highly sensitive western UP.
The recent objectional and personal comment of BJP MLA Nand Kishore Gurjar (Loni) against popular Samajwadi Party MP from Kairana Iqra Hasan Gurjar has led to heated debate against the him in the community. There is a feeling among a large section of Gurjars that Nand Kishore and some other BJP leaders have been trying to put Hindu-Muslim Gurjars at logger-heads to serve political interest in 2027 UP assembly elections.
Through her soft and suave political approach Iqra Hasan has succeeded in achieving wide-spread acceptability not only among Muslims but has become “affectionate daughter” of Hindu Gurjars also. After breakup of alliance with Jat-led Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) of Jayant Chaudhury after 2022 assembly election and victory of Iqra Hasan in 2024 Lok Sabha election, the Samajwadi Party has been making efforts to sew up a combination of Muslim-Gurjar-OBC in western UP. Iqra Hasan has become leading light in this drive as she has been quietly working in the community. The hostile personal comments of Nand Kishore against Iqra Hasan have given enough indication about desperation in Saffron brigade. The social media is full of the “Taus” of the community launching frontal attack on the BJP.
The BJP had made a formidable coalition of Jat-Gujjar-Dalits-MBC to dislodge entire opposition from region in 2022 elections. The strategy had paid off well as the party had almost swept the region. But in 2024 Lok Sabha election SP-Congress alliance performed well as a SP won six seats and one seat of Saharanpur had gone to Congress in western UP. Though Jats are around six per cent in UP, they are around 15 to 20 per cent in West UP districts of Meerut, Muzaffarnagr, Saharanpur, Shamli, Moradabad, Mathura, Agra and Aligarh. Muslims are evenly spread over in entire West UP and Roohelkhand. Gujjars’ concentration is in Meerut and Saharanpur divisions.
For quite a long time the politics in West revolved around AJGAR (Ahir-Yadav, Jat, Rajput) and later it turned into MAJGAR (Muslim, Ahir, Jat, Gujjar, Rajput). After the meltdown of MAJGAR under the onslaught of Ram Temple movement in 1991, the Jat community had started gravitating towards the BJP. It may be recalled that Former Prime Minister Chaudhury Charan Singh, who was of Jat ancestry, taking inspiration from pre-independence Jat leader Sir Chotu Ram (1881-1945) of Haryana, had formulated AJGAR (Ahir-Yadav, Jat and Rajput) to widen his political base. Later he added Muslims to make it MAJGAR and thereafter the Chaudhury’s family ruled the roost for many years. Jayant Chaudhury is grandson of Charan Singh and has been trying to revive this formulation. However reports indicated that after Jayant Chaudhury parted ways with SP alliance to join BJP combination, Muslims have largely distanced themselves from the RLD.
While Muslim support for SP seems to be intact Hindu Gurjars are also reportedly gravitating towards SP. But in view of continued bickering between Congress MP (Saharanpur) and UPCC working president Imran Masood and Iqra Hasan, Gurjars are not happy with the Congress. There is a strong feeling in the community that if the hostilities between the two continued it could adversely affect INDIA bloc performance in the region. There are hostile voices even in SP also against Imran Masood. A senior SP leader of Deoband Maviya Ali called him “Mir Jafer”. Maviya Ali said Imran had been trying to help the BJP in the region. Imran Masood has laid claim on all seven assembly seats of Saharanpur but Maviya Ali said except Rampur Maniharan seat, the Congress is on weak wicket on other seats and the SP is unlikely to consider the demand. While the Congress total vote was 11000 on all seats in 2022 assembly election, the party won Saharanpur Lok Sabha just because of alliance with the SP. “it was SP vote, which was transferred to Congress”, commented Maviya Ali.
(M Hasan is former Chief of Bureau, Hindustan Times, Lucknow)
