In the backdrop of the AAP and the BJP sparring over inclusion of Jat community in the OBC category at the Centre, Congress MLA from Julana, Haryana, Vinesh Phogat said here on Friday that it was the Congress government at the Centre that placed the caste in OBC list through a notification dated 4 March, 2014 providing them reservation in nine states.

Addressing a press conference here at the DPCC office, Phogat said, “AAP and BJP are doing politics on Jat reservation for electoral gains. But Congress is the only party that takes up the issues of Jats, OBCs, Harijans and the backwards, as Rahul Gandhi has been speaking up for them very strongly”.

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The sportsperson-turned-politician recalled that on 31 March 2000, the Congress government in Delhi under then chief minister Sheila Dikshit issued a notification for the inclusion of Jats in the OBC list. “When farmers of the entire country were protesting against the black farm laws, Kejriwal called a special session of the Delhi Assembly to issue a notification endorsing Modi’s three black farm laws in the city,” she noted.

Commenting on the guarantees of the BJP and AAP, Phogat said both the parties are copy-pasting the guarantees of the Congress-ruled states in Karnataka, Telangana, Himachal Pradesh, and Jharkhand.

“AAP had announced Rs 1000 per month for the women of Punjab, but three years after the promise, the government is yet to implement it. Similarly, BJP had promised in Maharashtra that it will increase the honorarium for women from Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,100 and in Madhya Pradesh from 1,250 to Rs 3,000, but these promises still remain on paper while Congress hiked the amount for women from Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,500 as soon as the new Jharkhand government took charge,” the MLA from Julana said.