Shift stir to Delhi: Mayawati tells Jats

Ahead of the upcoming Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati has put a new caste card into play by announcing her support to the ongoing agitation by the Jat community in the western parts of the state. Mayawati on Monday made it loud and clear that she was going to back the Jats in pushing their demand for declaring the community a backward class. 

"We are in full support of the Jat community's demand for its inclusion in the list of backward castes. This is something beyond the purview or powers of any state government and it can be done only by the central government," Mayawati said.

She urged the agitators to shift their demonstrations to New Delhi so that their voices were heard by the Centre. The UP CM's support for the Jat community is looked at by many as a way to retaliate against Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi who fueled an anti-Mayawati agitation by farmers in Bulandshahr last December. The farmers were demanding a higher compensation for their agricultural land acquired by the government for constructing the 165-km Yamuna Express way between Delhi and Agra. Gandhi had visited Tappal village and assured the agitating farmers of his party's support to their cause.

Train services hit

On Monday, the agitation by the Jat community entered its ninth day hitting over 550 train services. With Mayawati's administrators and the police looking the other way, demonstrators have been blocking the all-important Delhi-Lucknow train route. While a large number of trains have been diverted, a higher number were cancelled because of the agitating Jat farmers, who were squatting on the tracks.

At many places, the farmers had parked their tractors on the rail tracks and railway authorities could do little in the absence of support from the state police.

"The state government is just looking the other way and all our complaints to the UP chief secretary and director general of police has fallen on deaf ears," a senior railway officer from the Moradabad division told rediff.com.

"Apart from affecting passenger trains services, the agitation has also disturbed freight movement in a big way, so much so that the crucial supply of coal to certain power installations is also disrupted," he added.

According to the rail official, the agitation had cost the railways dear and the estimated losses are running into several crores already.