Chandigarh, May 11: Political parties lined up on either side of caste panchayats and the campaign against same gotra unions.
Congress member of Parliament Naveen Jindal backtracked diplomatically a day after extending support to the controversial caste panchayats even as the party sought to distance itself from the leader’s comments.
Indian National Lok Dal ( INLD) chief Om Prakash Chautala on the other hand demanded same gotra marriages be made illegal. He met home minister P. Chidambaram at North Block on Monday and handed over a memorandum seeking amendments to the Hindu Marriage Act to disallow same gotra marriages.
Jindal attended a caste mahapanchayat at Kaithal on Monday to accept a memorandum of their demands. He clarified over phone that he neither supported nor opposed the demand for banning the same subcaste weddings.
“ I am too young a public representative to form an opinion on this issue. I will put the memorandum before the party authorities,” the industrialist MP said. “ I have promised to support their fight against social menaces only.” He said he had met the panchayat representatives merely to accept their memorandum.
He added that he did not favour violence or a parallel system of justice.
But he supported any demand within the ambit of the Constitution.
The MP said his words had been misconstrued as support to the demand of the caste panchayats.
Jindal had written to Mani Ram Kadyan, president of a caste panchayat at Jakholi village in Kaithal district, saying he would work for “ gotra and other social issues”. But on Monday he made it clear that he was against honour killings.
The representatives of about 90 caste panchayats, during a convention in Kurukshetra on May 2, had resolved to gherao Jindal on Monday ( May 10) if he did not support them. The convention had urged all Haryana MPs to declare their support for the campaign against same gotra marriages.
“ I asked them to fight against social evils such as female foeticide. I told them I would support them within the legal framework,” Jindal said.
Political analysts said Jindal wrote to the panchayat representatives out of political compulsion.
The caste panchayats had sought his support when Opposition INLD had already backed their demand to amend the law and ban marriages within the same gotra and villages.
On Monday Chautala said he would propose a ban on same gotra marriages in the assembly.
The BJP on Monday termed Jindal’s comments as unfortunate but said there was a need to understand the view of the caste panchayats.
—-Agencies