HVP progress report may put BJP off

Parkash Singh Badal, under whose leadership the Akali-BJP alliance swept the elections in Punjab, is also learnt to be striving for a tie-up between the BJP and HLD (R). He is an old friend of former deputy prime minister Devi Lal and also holds clout in the BJP.

The factor in favour of Chautala is that he has demonstrated his hold on rural Haryana. Chautala’s party had no MP in the dissolved Lok Sabha,but has now won four seats. In Rohtak, Devi Lal lost to state Congress president Bhupinder Singh Hooda by only 383 votes.

In Bhiwani, which was regarded as a stronghold of Bansi Lal, Chautala’s son Ajay Singh gave the Chief Minister’s son, Surinder Singh, a run for his money. Singh could manage a victory only by about 9,700 votes. Bhiwani is the only seat secured by the HVP and had three members in the dissolved House.

The BJP, in alliance with the HVP, has succeeded in retaining only one of the four seats it had in the dissolved Lok Sabha. Chautala’s ally, the BSP, has wrested the Ambala seat from the BJP, while the Congress has snatched Karnal and Mahendragarh, raising its tally from two to three.

In spite of the defeats in Rohtak and Bhiwani, Chautala has emerged stronger, for the HLD (R) candidates led in as many as 43 of the 90 Vidhan Sabha segments, while the BSP led in another six. On the other hand, Bansi Lal looked like a spent force with HVP candidates managing a lead in only ninesegments.

The electoral debacle is likely to weaken Bansi Lal politically. The HVP is a personal outfit in which Bansi Lal’s word is the law. Most of the HVP MLAs joined the party before the 1996 elections, hoping to cash in on the general resentment over the non-performance of the Bhajan Lal government.

Bansi Lal had then projected himself as the builder of modern Haryana, a man who knew how to get things done, and did not tolerate corruption. His slogan of total prohibition had caught the fancy of the people who had been witness to growing social discord and hooliganism spawned by the increasing acceptability of drinking as a status symbol.

But the promised new era of development did not materialise. The administration remained as unresponsive as ever. In fact, it lost much of its verve, thanks to rough handling by the Chief Minister. Prohibition became a joke, with liquor easily available almost all over the state. And there was a common impression that influential people were allowed to make moneyby smuggling in truckloads of liquor.

Naturally, disenchantment with the HVP-BJP government set in and the opposition exploited it by converting the election into a virtual referendum against Bansi Lal. Although, there was an undercurrent of sympathy for the BJP for the manner in which the Vajpayee government was brought down in 1996 just after 13 days, the anti-Bansi Lal sentiment was much stronger and cooked the goose of the alliance.

With the elections having shown Bansi Lal incapable of fetching votes any longer, HVP legislators cannot but be uneasy about the future. Similar will be the case of the Independent MLAs who have been supporting the alliance government. Keeping them together is going to test Bansi Lal’s political skills to the utmost.

Besides, Bansi Lal may no longer find it easy to have his way with the BJP. With his popularity at its nadir, the BJP could become more assertive. With a hung Lok Sabha at the Centre, the possibility of another mid-term election would never be far from themind of the BJP leadership. Who knows Chautala may appear to them a more useful ally than Bansi Lal.