Manohar Lal Khattar-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Haryana on Thursday suffered setback as representatives of the agitating Jat Community skipped the meeting fixed with the chief minister to resolve the issue relating to the ongoing agitation.

Jat leaders from 10 sensitive districts including Jhajjar, Rohtak, Bhiwani, Charkhi-Dadri, Hisar, Jind, Sirsa, Kaithal, Sonipat and Panipat were approached by the Gurugram administration on Wednesday evening for a dialogue with the CM Khattar and his ministers in a meeting at city’s John Hall.

But representatives of Jats under the umbrella of Akhil Bharatiya Jat Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti (ABJASS) headed by Yashpal Malik refused to attend the proposed meeting.

Keeping in view the negative response of the Jat leaders for the meeting, BJP workers from the adjoining areas were asked to reach the spot. However, the venue witnessed more drama when handful members of Jat community reached the spot to attend the meet, were forced by the BJP workers to leave the spot.

Later on the state government termed the development a communication gap saying that the meeting was fixed for BJP workers not for the Jat agitators.

ABJASS president Yashpal Malik told The Statesman that his companions heading the agitation in the above said districts were approached by the administration but they had refused to attend any such meeting.

“Our people from these districts refused to attend the meeting as we have already put our demands before the Committee constituted by the state government. A few of those went to attend the meet in Gurugram has no concerned with the ongoing agitation. We are holding a state level meeting on Friday at Jassia village where the further plan on
agitation would be chalked out,” Malik said.

Although, the ongoing agitation in 20 districts of the state led by Malik today entered 19th day peacefully, yet the state government has put the civil and police administration in all the districts on high alert in view of ‘Balidan Diwas’ (martyr day) on coming February 19 across the state in memory of the community members killed during the
agitation last year.

Apart from heavy deployment of state police personnel, a total 37 companies of paramilitary forces and nearly 7000 home guard personnel have been put into positions in the state to avoid any untoward incident likewise the previous year.