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Journalism of Courage
Senior BJP leader and Union Minister Amit Shah’s wish for all 10 Lok Sabha seats from Haryana for “lotus” may send alarming bells for the saffron party’s alliance partner JJP and deputy CM Dushyant Chautala.
The JJP has been expressing its wish to contest the 2024 polls in alliance with BJP. JJP had won 10 Assembly seats of total 90 while BJP had won 40 seats in Vidhan Sabha election in 2019. The BJP could not secure a majority in the assembly prompting it to join hands with JJP.
In Sunday’s Gohana rally, Amit Shah, in his two-minute speech, insisted twice that lotus should bloom at all 10 seats of Haryana. He said: “I am confident that the lotus of BJP will bloom in every Lok Sabha seat.”
It may be an indication to the JJP that the saffron party is capable of contesting all 10 seats on its own and performing well too. It may be a message that the JJP, if it wants so, should take a lead or approach the BJP for an alliance with the saffron party for the assembly as well as Lok Sabha polls of 2024.
In December, Dushyant Chautala had announced that his party will contest the 2024 Assembly and Lok Sabha election in alliance with the BJP. Chautala had then told The Indian Express: “It was decided when we entered into an alliance in 2019. I have always stated this (to contest in alliance with BJP).”
Reacting to his statement, Haryana BJP chief spokesperson Sanjay Sharma had also said: “As both parties are running the government in alliance, so we are making the planning of the future in that way only.”
However, Amit Shah’s statement on Sunday may be a message to the cadre of the saffron party to be prepared to contest all 10 Lok Sabha seats on its own too. “All of us will work together to make Narender Modi-ji the Prime Minister again,” he said, adding that in the 2024 election the lotus should bloom at all parliamentary seats of Haryana.
Earlier, Chautala had stated that the JJP has plans to contest the Rajasthan Assembly elections, preferably in alliance with the BJP adding his party intends to field candidates in 18 Assembly constituencies of the neighbouring state. However, he clarified that the JJP has not taken a final decision over an alliance with BJP for the 2023 Rajasthan Assembly polls.
Despite the Modi wave in 2014 parliamentary polls, Dushyant Chautala (then in INLD) had won the Hisar Lok Sabha seat. Then BJP had won seven seats, INLD two and leaving one for Congress from Haryana’s ten seats. Dushyant Chautala had lost 2019 parliamentary polls but succeeded to secure 2.89 lakh votes when the saffron party had won all 10 seats from Haryana.
