Ahead of the Delhi assembly polls, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo and former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the Centre to include the Jat community in the list of Other Backward Classes (OBC). Furthermore, Kejriwal accused the Centre of betraying the Jat community over the last 10 years.
The AAP chief also claimed that the Jat community in Rajasthan is granted OBC reservation benefits under the central list while those in Delhi are denied these benefits at colleges, universities, or institutions of the Central Government.
"The Prime Minister and Home Minister only remember the Jats of Delhi before the elections," Kejriwal said at a press conference in New Delhi on Friday.
He added that rules of the central government are applicable in job openings in institutions such as the Delhi Police, NDMC, DDA, AIIMS, Safdarjung and Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.
"In such a situation, due to this breach of promise by the central government, injustice is being done to thousands of youth of the OBC community of Delhi," Kejriwal said in the letter.
Emphasising the need to "correct the anomalies" in the Central OBC list promptly, Kejriwal further requested the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre to abandon "biased attitude" towards the Jats and 5 other OBC castes.
Citing a 2015 meeting of the Jat leaders at the Prime Minister's official residence, Kejriwal accused the Centre of misleading the community for the past 10 years.
"In 2015, the BJP invited Jat leaders to the prime minister's residence and assured them that Delhi's Jat community would be included in the Central OBC list. Union Home Minister Amit Shah promised the same in 2019. However, nothing has been done to fulfil these promises."
Kejriwal raking up the issue of inclusion of Jats under the larger OBC umbrella could have significant impact in Delhi as the community makes up around 8-10 per cent of the national capital's electorate.
Voting will take place in a single phase in Delhi on February 5 and the counting of votes will be conducted on February 8.