New Delhi, 9 January (H.S.): Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Convenor Arvind Kejriwal has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding inclusion of Delhi's Jat community in the Centre's OBC list.

Kejriwal wrote, I am writing this letter to remind you of the promise you made 10 years ago. I recently met many representatives of Delhi's Jat community in the last few days. All of them expressed concern over the neglect of Delhi's Jat community in the Centre's OBC list. The representatives of the Jat community told me that on March 26, 2015, you had called the representatives of Delhi's Jat community to your house and promised that the Jat community, which is in Delhi's OBC list, will also be included in the Centre's OBC list so that they can get the benefit of reservation in Central Government colleges and jobs in Delhi.

Kejriwal said that after that on 8 February 2017, Amit Shah called a meeting of Jat leaders of Delhi and the country at Chaudhary Birendra Singh's house before the UP elections and promised them that the OBC castes in the state list will be added to the central list. The AAP leader said that before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Amit Shah again met Jat leaders at the residence of BJP MP Pravesh Verma in Delhi and he again promised that the Jat community of Delhi will be included in the OBC list of the Center, but no work was done on this after the elections.

He said that there are many inconsistencies in the policies of the Center regarding reservation, to which I want to draw your attention. I have come to know that due to being in the central OBC list, the youth of Jat community coming from Rajasthan get the benefit of OBC reservation in Delhi University, but on the other hand, the youth of Jat community of Delhi itself are not getting the benefit of OBC reservation in Delhi University, because the central government has not included the Jat community in the central OBC list despite having OBC reservation in Delhi.

Kejriwal termed this as a betrayal of the Jat community of Delhi and said that this has been happening for the last one decade. He said that apart from the Jat community, Rawat, Rauniyar, Rai Tanwar, Charan and Od castes have been given OBC status by the Delhi government, but the central government is not giving them the benefit of OBC reservation in its institutions in Delhi.

He said that there are seven universities of the central government and dozens of their colleges in the capital. There are jobs in many institutions of the central government like Delhi Police, NDMC, DDA, AIIMS, Safdarjung, RML, in which the rules of the central government are applicable. In such a situation, due to this breach of promise by the Central Government, injustice is being done to thousands of youth of OBC community of Delhi. Therefore, the Central Government should immediately correct the anomalies in the Central OBC list and provide reservation benefits to all the castes having OBC status in Delhi in the institutions of the Central Government.

Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar