With Dushyant Chautala emerging as kingmaker, he set terms of negotiation that BJP couldn’t refuse
The BJP’s experiment with the “One Haryana” concept, where it consolidated all other communities except the dominant Jats, cost Manohar Lal Khattar a vote of faith despite his steadying chief ministership. With a hung House and a resurgent Congress snapping at its heels, the party was desperate to stitch up a rainbow coalition government. Having already notched up 40 seats on the board, the BJP really didn’t need much, maybe six to 10 to stake claim. And picking up Independents was not too tough a task for party managers, who actually ferried some of them to Delhi. In that haste, it made a grave tactical error by getting Haryana Lokhit Party’s Gopal Kanda, whose political downfall was triggered by a suicide note left by an air hostess with MDLR Airlines, implicating him in rape and murder. A move disapproved by old-school BJP leader Uma Bharti, who warned that winning an election would not absolve him. The Independents were mostly disgruntled rebels of both the BJP and Congress, left out by their parent parties for incompetence, and could turn burdensome in no time at all. So the BJP, more than numbers, needed to win over angry Jats, who have clustered around the Congress and their new-age champion Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) chief Dushyant Chautala, the last combining grassroots logic with modern marketing effortlessly. Having won 10 seats convincingly, the Lawrence School Sanawar alumnus has proved that he is just as qualified in the political chessboard as his great grandfather Devi Lal. Dushyant was being wooed desperately by both the BJP and the Congress, the former more driven by the need to apologise to a constituency it needs in the heartland in the long run. In the resulting tug-of-war, the young Chautala smartly raised his stakes in the negotiations, agreeing to support whichever side guaranteed 75 per cent employment to the local youth of Haryana, took up “public interest” issues like old-age pension, free treatment for cancer patients and a scheme for the 25 lakh Jat voters in Delhi ahead of elections there. No smart-thinking party could refuse these “socially conscientious” commitments. In positing himself as a kingmaker vis-a-vis the BJP, Dushyant made sure that he could be the king of people’s hearts, if not the throne at this stage. The BJP could have managed the numbers from a bunch of “others” and settled for an issue-based understanding with Dushyant. But it was desperate to avoid further Jat alienation. As it is, by excluding them, by continuously harping on Kashmir during speeches in areas which send the highest number of soldiers to the Army, the BJP has earned nothing but wrath. It needs Dushyant as a bridge. On his part, Dushyant may use the BJP to write off the cases against his family. The Congress gave up the game knowing full well that it would not find itself as comfortable with the JJP leader, considering that the Chautalas had been imprisoned by senior leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda. As for Dushyant himself, though his party has the offer of deputy chief ministership, he may just want to stay out of governance and not betray the prevailing sentiment of anti-incumbency against Khattar. He might look at a more indirect involvement and shore up his image in the process, considering he has come this far since his debut in 2014. He needs a stable government to push his agenda.
In this election, the JJP presented itself as an alternative to the traditional parties, promoting youth leadership, a corruption-free governance and socially meaningful policies. Dushyant may not want to waste this hard-earned political capital and choose to walk alone. If he does indeed assume a post, then it will surely be on his terms and conditions. For in the smorgasbord of Haryana politics, he still offers optics and a freshly-minted hope. Everybody would need that for sustenance. Particularly BJP’s Amit Shah, who doesn’t like failures.