Khattar’s surrender

The Haryana BJP took offence at a Goa minister belittling the state over the ‘quality’ of tourists from North India. But the insult the BJP government in Haryana is piling upon the state is unbelievably staggering. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar is running a government as if he were taking orders at gun point. From letting non-Jats to provoke Jats into violence, to allowing Jats to burn down the state, to now submitting to the Jat demand to withdraw all cases against them, the government has allowed itself to be shoved and jostled the way anyone pleased.

The state government has demonstrated strange priorities and comprehension of governance. While it sees nothing amiss in appointing a senior IPS officer as CEO, Gau Seva Aayog, the government has also arrogated to itself the right to condone the most serious crimes of arson and violence committed by some Jat protesters. And all because the Chief Minister has to present a situation-under-control report to his party chief Amit Shah on February 15. Thousands of state and Central policemen are being deployed and legalities and justice are being sacrificed at the altar of divisive politics.

While Khattar may be dismissed as a helpless bystander, it is the BJP's politics that needs scrutiny. Why does it believe bringing thousands of youth on motorcycles into an already communally charged state is going to further the politics of the party? Drawing a parallel to Kasganj, UP, cannot be avoided. The Jat is being turned into the ‘Muslim’ by the BJP in Haryana — isolating the Jats, and consolidating the rest. The likes of Jat leader Yashpal Malik deserve equal condemnation. He knows full well that only the courts can allow withdrawal of cases, just as reservation is a matter of Central legislation. Yet he continues to exploit the community's historical resentments to gain currency in a state to which he does not even belong. If Haryana has to avoid more violence in the run-up to both parliamentary and state elections, its people will have to see through the devious machinations of their leaders.