Om Prakash Dhankar: The big test ahead for BJP's new Haryana chief

With an eye on maintaining the caste balance in its ranks, the BJP leadership has passed on the state unit’s reins from Subhash Barala to Om Prakash Dhankar — both Jat.

The selection is being seen as an attempt at reconciliation with the Jat community, which has been at loggerheads with the party since the February 2016 violence. However, political observers are of the view that Dhankar’s elevation would hardly translate into votes, given his poor electoral performances.

Dhankar, 58, a ground-level RSS worker, has held several organisational posts during his nearly four-decade career but has failed to deliver in elections. In 2009, he contested Assembly election for the first time from the Dadri seat on the BJP ticket and lost his deposit after getting just 3,156 votes. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he contested against Deepender Singh Hooda, son of then Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, from the Rohtak constituency and was defeated by a staggering 170,627 votes. In the 2014 Assembly polls, he tasted first electoral success.

After the party’s victory in the 2014 state elections, he was put in charge of five departments in the state Cabinet, including the most important ones, such as agriculture and farmer welfare, irrigation, and development and panchayats.

Despite being one of the most powerful ministers during the first term of the BJP-led government, in 2019, he lost to Kuldeep Vats, a Congress candidate, by 11,245 votes. However, the party still entrusted him with the key post of the state chief to woo the Jats, who form the vote base of the Bhupinder Singh Hooda-led Congress and the Dushyant Singh Chautala-led Jannayak Janta Party (JJP).

Politics in the Jat belt

The Jats constitute about 27 per cent of the state’s population. The BJP, in the 2019 Assembly elections, gave the ticket to 22 Jat candidates, but five won. The party’s top Jat leaders — Dhankar, Captain Abhimanyu, and Barala — lost.

The BJP leadership was unable to find a high-profile Jat leader among the winners who could transform the Jats’ closeness to the party into votes. The decision to appoint Dhankar, who hails from Jhajjar, is being seen as an attempt to resurrect the BJP’s vote bank in the Jat heartland (Rohtak, Jhajjar, and Sonipat), which remains a Hooda bastion.

After the Assembly elections, when the BJP fell six MLAs short of the halfway mark in the 90-member Assembly, it formed the government in alliance with the JJP. Chautala, who holds 11 portfolios in the Khattar-led government, is the most powerful Jat leader in the Cabinet.

The BJP feels threatened by the growing influence of Deputy CM Chautala on the Jats. “The party doesn’t have any prominent Jat leader. Dhankar, being agriculture minister, is considered stronger than others and not a threat to Khattar,” said Kushal Pal, state coordinator, Lokniti, and head of department of political science at Dyal Singh College, Karnal. The promotion of a non-Jat by removing Barala would have aggravated the ire of the Jats. Dhankar is outspoken and has an aggressive approach. His association with the party’s Kissan Morcha (which he headed from 2011 to 2015) has made him the most suitable choice for the post. “His selection is more on the basis of lack of choice than merit,” said a party leader.

RSS face

An educationist-turned-politician, Dhankar has been associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh since 1978. Between 1980 and 1996, he worked with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). In 1996, he joined the BJP and was appointed national secretary. He also has handled the responsibility of the BJP in Himachal Pradesh.

He is one of the most controversial politicians in the state. During the 2014 campaign, he promised the youth to get them brides from Bihar if his party was voted to power. In 2015, he was widely criticised for his statement at a rally: That people go to school to become servants, whereas to become a leader one has to learn from the RSS and the ABVP. In 2015, he stirred a hornet’s nest when he said farmers who committed suicide were cowards and criminals.

The challenge
 

The first challenge for Dhankar will be to deliver a victory for the party in the upcoming Baroda assembly bypoll, where the Jats form a key vote base. “He has to bring all the peasant communities under one umbrella. He has to prove himself a peasant leader, not just a Jat,” said Pal.

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