'Gujjars will give up quota demand if Jats taken off OBC list'

JAIPUR: The state's backward communities within the Other Backward Classes (OBC) group appear united against the Jats to demand their removal from the reserved category in keeping with a recent Supreme Court judgment. The Rajasthan Gujjar Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti has gone to the extent of announcing that it would give up the demand for separate quota if the Jats were taken off the state's OBC list.
The Gujjars, who belong to the OBC category that enjoys 21% reservation in government jobs and educational institutes, have held violent agitations since 2006 to demand that they be either shifted to the ST category or be given 5% separate quota along with four other communities under a Special Backward Classes (SBC) category. Following the statewide agitations and violence that resulted in the death of around 70 people, the state government had to bring in a reservation Act (currently stuck in the High Court) in 2008 to accommodate the Gujjars' demand.
"Gujjars will not demand separate quota in government jobs and educational institutes if the Jats, who were never backward, are removed from the OBC category. The Jat community is very advanced-highly educated and socially as well as financially dominant-but the BJP government clubbed it with the OBCs for purely political motives," Samiti spokesperson Himmat Singh Gujjar said at a press conference here on Thursday. He asserted that Jats have been pocketing around 70% of the OBC share since they were far superior to the remaining communities.
Calling themselves the "Mool" (original) OBCs-those who were in this category much before the Jats were added to it in 1999-these communities have formed an association called the Mool OBC Mahasangh, Rajasthan. To press for their demand against the Jats, the Mahasangh would stage a protest at the city's Udyog Maidan on coming Saturday. The association has said it would launch a statewide 'public awareness' campaign, starting from Sriganganagar on April 27.
"As part of the protests, we will hold 'Raavan dahan' to burn effigies of PM Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah," said Daulat Ram, member of the Mahasangh's core committee. Speaking at the press conference, he asked, "Jats have maximum number of MPs, MLAs, zila pramukhs, pradhans, up-pradhans, have dominance in bureaucracy, government and private sector jobs and own the largest share in state's irrigated land. How can this community be called backward?" Former minister Rajendra Singh Ghuda, who too is a member of the Mahasangh's core committee said, "If Jats are backward, no community in the state can be called well off."
Former civil judge and Mahasangh's convener, Rajkumar Chhipa said, "The state government included Jats in the OBC category without any survey or recommendation by the OBC commission. The BJP did it and the Congress supported it, as both parties were eying political benefits."
Last month the Supreme Court quashed a union government notification that brought the Jats in the central list of so-called backward classes in eight states, including Rajasthan's Bharatpur and Dholpur districts. The Modi-government later filed a review petition against it.