After days of shadow boxing, the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) led by Kuldeep Bishnoi on Thursday announced that the party was ending its three-year partnership with the BJP. Amid indications that Mr. Bishnoi is likely to cobble together a political front comprising smaller parties, he announced an alliance with the Haryana Jan Chetna Party (HJCP) led by the former Haryana Minister, Venod Sharma, for the coming Assembly elections.
No ally in Haryana
This leaves the BJP without an ally in Haryana but the party has already indicated that with seven out of the 10 Lok Sabha seats under its belt, it is going to make a bid for the State Assembly on its own. It has opened its doors for dissidents from the Congress and the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), who have joined the saffron party in droves in recent weeks.
BJP Legislature Party leader Anil Vij said the HJC decision would have no effect on his party’s election prospects in Haryana. “The HJC does not have any legislator or MP and is just a husband and wife team with pretensions of power,” he said.
Mr. Bishnoi, the late Haryana strongman Bhajan Lal’s younger son, snapped ties with the BJP accusing the party of “betrayal” and of “humiliating” him at every stage. He alleged that the saffron party connived with the INLD to ensure his defeat from the Hissar Lok Sabha seat, which eventually went to Dushyant Chautala of the INLD. “I was not invited for any important rally of the BJP and whenever I went of my own accord, I was not invited to speak on the stage,” he said.
Mr. Bishnoi’s main grouse is over seat sharing in 45:45 ratio and the Chief Minister’s post which the BJP had offered to give him as per a pre-Lok Sabha election agreement. After the elections, with a NDA government at the Centre, the BJP began to eye the Assembly for itself and told Mr. Bishnoi in no uncertain terms that he could at best be given only 25 seats, and if the alliance won, the Chief Minister would be a BJP leader and not him.
Mr. Venod Sharma who was present on the dais with Mr. Bishnoi at a meeting on Thursday, declared that the latter would be the new alliance’s CM candidate. The two parties would release their election manifesto on August 31 at Ambala.
Political circles are rife with speculation that these two parties could be joined by the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Haryana Lokhit Party headed by the former Home Minister, Gopal Kanda.
It may be recalled that Mr. Sharma wanted to join the HJC before the Lok Sabha elections, but his move was objected to by BJP leader Sushma Swaraj. Mr Sharma, a media baron with business interests in real estate and sugar, is the father of Manu Sharma, who was convicted of shooting dead model Jessica Lal in a Delhi restaurant in 1999.
