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Journalism of Courage
Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) chief Dushyant Chautala and his nine legislators had formed a post-poll alliance with the BJP and emerged as its “saviours” in 2019 after the Haryana Assembly polls threw up a fractured mandate. Four-and-a-half years later, ditched by its ally and facing rebellion from its own ranks, Dushyant stares at a tough road ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections and the subsequent state polls.
The BJP had made Dushyant the Deputy CM as reward for supporting the BJP-JJP government, holding key portfolios like Excise and Taxation, Revenue and Disaster Management, Commerce, Food, etc. Two other JJP MLAs – Anoop Dhanak and Devender Singh Babli – were also made ministers in the Manohar Lal Khattar Cabinet.
BJP sources said the decision was taken finally to sever ties with the JJP as the chorus of workers who felt Dushyant was getting “too demanding” was growing. The last straw was the JJP chief’s demand for 2 Lok Sabha seats in the coming elections – Hisar and Bhiwani-Mahendergarh. The BJP had won all the 10 seats in the state in 2019.
Sources said the BJP also felt that Dushyant was hogging the limelight and projecting himself as a “parallel power centre”. “Dushyant’s key poll promise of providing youths of the state 75% reservation in private jobs was implemented but challenged in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which struck it down. It was the state government that also implemented another promise by him, of 50% quota for women in panchayati raj institutions. However, he began taking credit, including for developing Hisar (a seat which he had won in 2014) as a civil aviation hub. These things did not go down well with the BJP, especially ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. The alliance was called off for many other reasons, which will emerge in the near future,” a senior BJP leader told The Indian Express.
Sources said there was unanimous consensus to snap ties with Dushyant at a meeting held by the state BJP on February 29, where the party finalised candidates for all the 10 seats in the state and sent the list to the high command for approval. Several of them were of the view that the party should discard the JJP and rely on the seven Independent MLAs to continue in government, with most having already declared support to the BJP.
Dushyant had floated the JJP with his father Ajay Singh Chautala in 2018, after a fallout with the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), just one year ahead of the 2019 elections. He had won 10 seats but emerged as the kingmaker after the BJP fell 6 short of the magic number of 46 in the 90-member House.
Insiders told The Indian Express that the JJP’s drubbing in last year’s Rajasthan Assembly polls also led the BJP to take the decision to dump the party. The JJP had fielded candidates in 19 seats and all, except one, forfeited their deposits. Together, they polled 0.15% of the votes, lesser than NOTA’s 0.96%. As many as 12 of the 19 candidates got only 160-1,200 votes.
Days ago, BJP Hisar MP Brijendra Singh, the son of veteran leader Birender Singh, crossed over to the Congress citing the BJP’s alliance with the JJP as one of the reasons.
However, more than the break with the BJP, what may cost Dushyant more is the rebellion from his own leaders. At the meeting led by him in Delhi as the BJP held its own to decide the future of the alliance, only 6 of the party’s 10 MLAs came. Tohana MLA Devender Singh Babli, Narnaund MLA Ram Kumar Gautam, Barwala MLA Jogi Ram Sihag, and Guhla MLA Ishwar Singh skipped the meeting.
Incidentally, Dushyant had also faced trouble from within the party during the farmer agitation of 2020. At the time, several JJP MLAs, including Gautam and Babli, had urged him to walk out of the alliance with the BJP, apprehensive of facing the fallout of farmer anger. However, Dushyant had stuck on, and even praised BJP leaders at the time.
JJP sources told The Indian Express that despite the challenging situation, the party was confident of contesting all the 10 Lok Sabha seats.
Earlier, the Congress and AAP announced an alliance in the state, with the grand old party contesting 9 seats and the Arvind Kejriwal-led outfit to field a candidate in 1.
Soon after the BJP broke away from the JJP, the Congress called the move “a conspiracy to damage its prospects” in the upcoming polls. “Everything is being done at the BJP’s behest. The JJP will now field candidates, who will cut into the Congress’s vote share,” Rajya Sabha MP Deepender Hooda said.
