BJP-HJC : Will they Fight Haryana Polls 2014 Together?

By Deepak Parvatiyar

August 22, 2014

Kuldeep Bishnoi is no stranger to the vagaries of opportunistic politics. Being son of the irrepressible late Bhajan Lal – whose name became synonymous with the Aaya Ram Gaya Ram politics in the country, he is well groomed in the tradition of expedient politics. The father-son duo had left the Congress to form their own political outfit – the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) in 2007. In 2009, they had a dose of their own medicine when five of the six newly elected legislators of the HJC dumped the party and joined the ruling Congress.

The Uneasy BJP – HJC Association

Three years ago, the HJC had inked a pact with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that in a state election, both the parties would contest 45 of the 90 seats each and that Bishnoi would be the Chief Minister if the coalition is able to form the government.

But the HJC even failed to open its account in the state in this summer’s general elections. The BJP’s splendid performance at the hustings, where it won seven of the 10 seats from Haryana in this year’s general elections, has revived the party’s prospects in the state where it registered a lead in 53 of the 90 assembly segments and saw a quantum jump in its share of votes to a commendable 34.6 per cent from a dismal 17.21 per cent in the 2009 general election.

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• List of Haryana assemblies
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Little surprise, therefore, that the BJP wants to rewrite its 2011 pact with the HJC. So, the question arises on the future of the BJP-HJC alliance in the state. Should the BJP go to the polls in Haryana all alone? Or should it get into some pact with the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD)? It is interesting to note that one of its major allies in neighbouring Punjab and Delhi, the Shiromani Akali Dal, has already made a pact with the INLD in Haryana for the ensuing elections. Does this indicate the possibility of any larger post poll alliance between the BJP, SAD and the INLD?

Haryana Elections – A Game of Musical Chairs for the BJP

Call it expediencies of electoral politics or a marriage of convenience, the saffron party, in successive elections, has tied knot, turn by turn, with almost all major players in state politics (barring the Congress, of course) in its desperation to be a force to reckon with in the Jat land. Hence, late Bansi Lal’s Haryana Vikas Party (HVP), Om Prakash Chautala’s INLD, Kuldeep Bishnoi’s HJC, even as they remained bitter rivals of each others, have all – at some point of time or other – partnered the BJP.

Given the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was once in-charge of the state for the BJP, much pride is now attached for him personally as he has much stake here. Any BJP pre-election political manoeuvre needs to be seen in this light as Haryana goes to poll in about a month’s time. (The date is yet to be announced by the Election Commission).

Yet before we indulge into any hypothesis of BJP’s political alliance during the ensuing state assembly elections, just consider these facts:

• In 1989, the BJP made electoral adjustments with the Janata Dal but lost both the Lok Sabha seats that it contested in Haryana. Yet, Janata Dal won six of the total 10 seats from the state while the Congress bagged the remaining four seats.
• In 1991, the BJP contested all the ten parliamentary seats in the state and its candidates lost deposits in nine seats. In the state assembly elections too that year, the party contested 89 seats but won only two. This was perhaps the trigger point for the saffron brigade to look for crutches in the successive elections in the state.
• In 1996, the BJP joined hands with Bansi Lal’s HVP and contested six Lok Sabha seats and one four. The alliance also contested the Assembly elections together and the BJP, piggybacking on Bansi Lal’s popularity, won 11 of the 25 seats that it contested. Lal’s HVP won 33 of the 65 seats that it contested. This was the first and only time that the BJP could join the government in Haryana – albeit as an alliance partner that played second fiddle to the HVP. Yet within two years, the coalition lost the popular support of the people by imposing prohibition and also by forcibly recovering power dues from the farmers.
• In 1998, even as the coalition continued, both the BJP and the HVP won only one seat each while Devi Lal’s Haryana Lok Dal won four seats in the state in the Lok Sabha elections.
• In 1999, the BJP severed its ties with the HVP and tied knots with Devi Lal’s son, Chautala who became the CM as the leader of the INLD. In the Lok Sabha elections the same year, the BJP-INLD combine bagged all the ten seats in the state.

Modi’s Concerns over Haryana Elections

It is interesting that Modi, as in charge of BJP’s Haryana affairs, was directly involved with the party’s pact with HVP and thereafter with INLD! Yet, the support to the INLD was a result of barter between Chautala and the BJP as the former’s four MPs had voted in favour of the Confidence vote of the Atal Behari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance coalition in Parliament on condition that the BJP will withdraw support to Bansi Lal. It is noteworthy that even though the Vajpayee government fell in New Delhi, the BJP honoured its commitment and installed Chautala as the CM of Haryana.

The genesis of the present power play between the Lotus and HJP perhaps lies in the bitter experience of the BJP with the INLD in the year 2000. In the Assembly election that year, the BJP could win only six of the 29 seats that it contested while the INLD contested 62 seats and won 47 of them. In the 90-member house, it did not require the BJP yet the latter lent unconditional support to the INLD from outside. The gesture was never reciprocated by the INLD forcing the BJP to go all alone again in the 2005 Assembly elections. It contested all 90 seats but could win just two of them. Even the INLD fared poorly with just nine seats to its kitty then. The next decade, therefore, belonged to the Congress that ruled the state for two successive terms. In 2009 the BJP’s dismal run continued in the state politics and it could bag only four Assembly seats in the state.

The issue that the BJP needs to resolve is whether to prefer the consolidation of non-Jat votes under Bishnoi or opt for a formidable Jat like Chautala these elections in Haryana? Chautala has thus far ruled out any INLD-BJP coalition. But then isn’t it true that politics is the art of the possible?