According to media reports, the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) of Om Prakash Chautala is desperately trying to form an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). INLD is on the back foot due to the split within the party and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) of Mayawati has also deserted them last month. Interestingly, since 2005, INLD has been defeated in 3 consecutive assembly elections in Haryana. Now, INLD is trying to woo its former ally BJP to reverse fortunes in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Currently, Om Prakash Chautala’s younger son Abhay Singh Chautala is in the front line of the party and trying hard to regain its lost ground. Not to forget that INLD and BJP were coalition partners in the Om Prakash Chautala-led government during the period 1999-2005.
After the arrest of Om Prakash Chautala, who is serving a 10-year jail term in teachers’ recruitment scam case with his elder son Ajay Singh Chautala, the INLD is having a tough time over the past few years. “We have sent feelers to the BJP high command. While they want that the INLD and the BJP should come together, there is some resistance from their state unit,” senior INLD leader and sitting MLA Parminder Dhull told PTI.
Parminder Dhull is not the only one making such statements regarding an alliance with the BJP. In a similar way, Abhay Chautala’s elder son Karan Chautala had recently asked the party workers that whether an alliance with the BJP is favoured or not?
“Chautala sahab has sent a letter addressed to the party workers and he wants to know whether you want to see green (colour of INLD flag) and saffron (colour of BJP flag) together again,” he had said at the INLD’s state executive body meeting in Jhajjar.
The party faced a major threat of disintegration in November last year, when a bitter power struggle broke out between Ajay Chautala and Abhay Chautala. Later, Ajay Chautala and his sons Dushyant and Digvijay were expelled from the Haryana-based party by Chautala Senior. In December, Dushyant, the MP from Hisar, launched the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP).
Since then the Haryana-based party is being bombarded with a series of bad news. In the Jind bypolls, which were held in January this year after the death of the INLD’s sitting MLA Hari Chand Middha, the party suffered a humiliating defeat. Moreover, its candidate Umed Singh Redhu was not even able to retrieve his security deposit. Just few days later, the BSP called off its nine-month-old alliance with the party. On the top of that many big leaders jumped ship and joined BJP. Prominent leaders including two of its former MLAs — Rajbir Singh and Buta Singh, and senior leader and sitting MLA from Nalwa in Hisar, Ranbir Gangwa, joined the Saffron Party.
Four other sitting legislators of the party, including Ajay Chautala’s wife Naina, are supporting the JJP. Out of 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana, the BJP currently holds seven, the Congress has one and the INLD has two — Sirsa and Hisar. But, the Hisar MP, Dushyant Chautala, has already formed his new party. When Dhull was asked about the crisis in INLD, he said, “We will overcome this challenge and people will back us.”
However, till now the BJP state unit has asserted that the party would go it alone in Haryana. On the recent development and speculation of an alliance with the BJP and moreover regarding Om Prakash Chautala’s letter to party workers, Haryana BJP president Subhash Barala said, “We have thrown such letters into the dustbin. We are going to fight the polls on our own.” Many other party workers seconded his stance and BJP is all set to contest the election alone and under the leadership of CM Manohar Lal Khattar in the state.