At centre of BJP-JJP rift, Uchana Kalan and Hisar seats: Heart of faultline between Chautalas, Singhs

In the April-May 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Brijendra defeated Dushyant in Hisar. However, in the Assembly polls held in October 2019, Dushyant defeated Brijendra’s mother, Prem Lata, in Uchana Kalan. She was the sitting MLA of the seat.

With the elections to the 90-member Haryana Assembly throwing a hung verdict in 2019, the incumbent BJP, which emerged as a single largest party with 40 seats, joined hands with the JJP, which bagged 10 seats, to form their coalition government under Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar.

The fissures between the BJP and the JJP have been widening for some time, with both of them announcing that they will contest all the 10 Lok Sabha seats in the state in 2024 on their own steam.
Both the allies have also kicked off their preparations for the Lok Sabha elections, with the BJP starting to hold its rallies since Union Home Minister Amit Shah sounded the poll bugle at a rally in Hisar on June 18.

The JJP is set to launch its Lok Sabha rallies from Sonipat on July 2.

“It is a matter of coincidence that both the families, Chautalas and Singhs, are in a kind of alliance with each other now. Earlier, Birender Singh family and Chautala family had been contesting against each other in Uchana Kalan for nearly four decades. Both the families consider this seat as their stronghold and that is the reason why they would not want to leave their claims on it. There is a high possibility that we would again be seeing a tough contest between the two families in the same seat in 2024 elections too,” a senior BJP leader told The Indian Express.

In the Hisar parliamentary seat, Birender had first defeated Om Prakash Chautala in 1984. In 2014, Dushyant got elected to the Lok Sabha from Hisar. At that time Brijendra was with the All India Civil Services. Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Brijendra quit as an IAS officer and contested from Hisar on the BJP’s ticket, defeating Dushyant, who went on to defeat Prem Lata five months later from Uchana Kalan.

Although Birender, who was earlier with the Congress, had won five times from Uchana Kalan, Om Prakash Chautala defeated him in 2009. In the 2014 election, Prem Lata defeated Dushyant from the seat. The same year Birender joined the BJP and was inducted into Prime Minister Narendra Mod’s Cabinet.

“The tussle between both Chautalas and the Singh family is definitely going to play a major factor if the alliance between BJP and JJP breaks in the coming days. Although it is not yet certain if BJP is going to repeat Brijendra Singh in Hisar, but Chautala family would certainly want one of their members to contest from this seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. It could be Dushyant Chautala’s younger brother Digvijay who has not been able to register a victory so far despite having contested the Lok Sabha poll from Sonipat and the Assembly election from Jind. JJP may field somebody else too from this seat, but as on date it is clear that both BJP and JJP would definitely contest separately. Even if BJP does not repeat Brijendra in Hisar, the party would never leave this seat for JJP in the name of alliance,” another senior BJP leader said.

The BJP’s Haryana in-charge and ex-Tripura CM, Biplab Deb, has virtually announced Prem Lata as the party’s nominee from Uchana Kalan in the 2024 Assembly election.

Reacting sharply to Biplab’s announcement, the JJP said that Dushyant had defeated Prem Lata by over 48,000 votes and would again contest from the same seat next year, too. The sparring between the two allies has intensified following Biplab’s announcement.

Last week, Brijendra and Digvijay Chautala also got into a heated exchange. In a swipe at Brijendra, Digivjay said that “Hisar was looking for its missing Member of Parliament”. Hitting back, Brijendra said, “He(Digivijay) is a self-styled leader of his own family’s party, had never even won an election of sarpanch. He says something else, but does something else. It is not appropriate for me to respond to statements of such a person,” adding that “There is no BJP leader, nor any BJP worker who is happy with BJP’s alliance with JJP”.

BJP sources told The Indian Express that the party top brass including party chief J P Nadda, Amit Shah, Biplab, Khattar, and party’s state unit president Om Prakash Dhankar recently held a meeting to discuss the Haryana alliance affair and that a final decision on the issue would be taken soon.