After a three-year long acrimonious relationship between Kuldeep Bishnoi-led Haryana Janhit Congress and BJP, the alliance ended ahead of the Assembly polls, triggering new political realignment in the State.
Bishnoi, the younger son of late chief minister Bhajan lal, snapped the ties and accused BJP of betraying the party. Political leaders in the state say that Bishnoi has made a big blunder as his party hardly has any base beyond Hisar. Many say that HJC, there perhaps could be only one seat-Adampur, the family bastion.
In the last Assembly polls of 2009 when his father and the towering non-Jat leader of the state, Bhajan lal was leading the campaign, the party won 6 seats. However, Bishnoi made a big political mistake and kept on bargaining with the Congress for the post of Deputy Chief Minister. Not surprisingly, Bhupinder Singh Hooda won the loyalty of five of his MlAs and got them merged with the Congress. The lone MlA left with Bishnoi was his wife.
BJP, which always remained a fringe player in Haryana and banked on alliances to get into the assembly and the lok Sabha, wanted a non-Jat political platform to counter Congress and Indian National lok Dal-both led by Jat leaders. It wanted to revive what many called as the “Bhajan lal formula” of bringing the non-Jat castes under one umbrella. It entered into an alliance with Haryana Janhit Congress hoping to revive
the magic.
The political ambition of BJP could never materialise as Bishnoi failed to bring the non-Jats together and did not show the leadership skills. Also, he was no match to his mercurial father who still has supporters in almost every village of Haryana. Bishnoi was an MP from Hisar in the last lok Sabha but failed to capitalise on the gains ever since the alliance was formed in 2011.
The HJC-BJP alliance was forged with the blessings of the then leader of Opposition in lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj who called the shots in the party when Nitin Gadkari was the party President. Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan was the BJP in-charge of Haryana when the alliance was formed, it was decided that both would contest 45 seats each in Assembly polls and the chief ministerial post would be on rotation and the first half would go to Bishnoi if the alliance was voted to power.
The alliance continued till the lok Sabha polls when BJP contested 8 seats while HJC contested 2. While the strike rate of BJP was excellent with 7 wins, the HJC lost both its seats despite a Modi wave in the state and the country.
Bishnoi himself lost from Hisar, the seat from which he was the sitting MP to a 26-year old Dushyant Chautala, the fourth generation politician from former Deputy Prime Minister Devi lal’s family. “Bishnoi has a massive ego. He has this misplaced notion that he is as popular in Haryana as his father Bhajan lal. His ego has let him down. He could have easily merged his party in BJP. This seems to be a politically suicidal step,” said a senior BJP leader in the State.
Another BJP leader said, “instead of reaching out to the big brother (BJP) and addressing its concerns after the lok Sabha polls, Bishnoi always wanted a special treatment and thought he was the big brother in the alliance.”
The first signs of strain appeared when Bishnoi wanted to induct Congressman and Hooda’s friend Venod Sharma in HJC after BJP refused to do so. Sharma was supposed to join BJP but Sushma Swaraj tweeted against his entry, forcing the party, then under Rajnath Singh to beat a hasty retreat. Without realising that this could strain the relations, Bishnoi wanted to field Sharma as HJC candidate in the lok Sabha polls from Karnal. When BJP opposed the move, a series of flip-flops took place and Bishnoi was at the receiving end. BJP leaders say it was a “good riddance” as a lot of leaders have joined the party in Haryana and they were finding it difficult to accommodate the supporters of all of them. “Now with Bishnoi leaving us, we have a relatively easy time finalising the candidates,” said another leader.