In Muzaffarnagar, Amit Shah rakes up communal riots to woo ‘Jats’

Shah's reference to the communal riots assume significance as the violent clashes had hit the bonhomie between the Jats and Muslims in the region

Union Minister and senior BJP leader Amit Shah campaigns for the party candidates ahead of the UP Assembly elections, in Muzaffarnagar. Credit: PTI Photo

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday raked up the 2013 communal riots in Muzaffarnagar in the western Uttar Pradesh region to woo the electorally influential Jat community by alleging that then Samajwadi Party (SP) regime had implicated several members of the community in false cases even though they were actually "victims."

‘’The victims of the communal riots were made accused while the accused were portrayed as victims in the then SP regime…we have not yet forgotten the pains of the riots,’’ Shah said during an interaction with the electorate in Muzaffarnagar.

The union minister’s reference to the communal riots assume significance as the violent clashes, which left over 60 dead and thousands others displaced, had also impacted the bonhomie between the Jats and Muslims in the region, who together formed around 35 per cent of the total electorate and used to vote together.

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BJP managed to sweep the western region in the 2014, 2019 Lok Sabha polls and the 2017 state assembly polls riding the division in the Jat-Muslim votes.

Shah, who had extended an olive branch to the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) president Jayant Chaudhary and asked him to join the BJP-led alliance in the UP polls, also sought to drive a wedge between SP-RLD alliance saying that Akhilesh would "throw" him (Jayant) out of the alliance after the polls and would include people like Azam Khan and Atiq Ahmed.

Shah had met some Jat leaders from the region in Delhi a few days back.

‘’Akhilesh and Jayant say that they are together but for how long?....After the counting of votes Akhilesh will throw Jayant out……his place will be taken by the likes of Azam Khan and Atiq Ahmed,’’ he added.

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Jayant had rebuffed Shah and said that he was not like a coin who could be flipped easily. He had also accused the BJP of trying to polarise the polls in the western UP along religious lines.

The former BJP president sought to woo the Jat community by saying that the centre and the state government had taken several initiatives to honour the icons of the community and referred to the establishment of a University in Aligarh after the famous ‘Jat’ king Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh.

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