 "Dushyant Chautala")
Dushyant Chautala (Photo: Wikipedia)
Haryana’s five-and-a-half-year-old Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) has been in crisis since its coalition with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state ended last month. The party has been rocked by a spate of high-profile resignations. Its general secretary Kamlesh Saini, and Haryana unit chief Nishan Singh were the first to quit the party.
Mamata Kataria, former JJP state women’s secretary, also said recently that she had resigned. On Tuesday, Jogi Ram Sihag, a member of the legislative assembly (MLA), wrote to the JJP leadership and requested that he be relieved from all party posts and responsibilities.
For the party, led by former deputy chief minister of Haryana Dushyant Chautala, the future looks uncertain and it may not have any substantial impact on the upcoming general election. This is despite the party announcing that it will field its candidates on all 10 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
According to political analyst Mahabir Jaglan, the JJP has not provided any “appealing reason” for the dissolution of its coalition with the BJP.
“They could have said that it was due to farmers’ agitation, as all their major constituencies are farmer-centric. But they did not give any valid reason. In Haryana, the upcoming Lok Sabha elections will be bipolar, it’s BJP versus Congress. JJP does not fit on either side,” he said.
Pramod Kumar, chairperson, the Institute for Development and Communication (IDC), Chandigarh, said that JJP’s coalition with the BJP was a post-election partnership and there was an impression that it was ended strategically.
“It was a strategic, carefully thought-out move to break the alliance before the elections to ensure division of Jat votes to the advantage of BJP in Parliamentary elections,” he said, adding that if JJP fields a Jat candidate, it will directly impact the Congress in the state.
Kumar said the future of the JJP would have to be seen vis-a-vis the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD). “It would have to be seen if the party gets merged with INLD,” he said.
Jaglan also hinted that there had been talks that the JJP was trying to reconnect with the INLD. The JJP came into existence in December 2018 after a vertical split in the INLD, following a feud in the Chautala family.
On Tuesday, JJP chief Ajay Chautala hinted that he could rejoin the INLD if its chief and former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala took the initiative. However, later, his brother and INLD senior leader Abhay Chautala rejected it, saying there was no place for “traitors” in the party.
Jaglan said the JJP was even facing troubles with finding 10 candidates to contest the general election after several exits from the party.
“With the inability to reach a seat-sharing agreement with the BJP and the broader trust placed in Prime Minister Narendra Modi by the electorate, the JJP’s impact seems limited,” said senior BJP leader Jai Bhagwan Goyal.
Some experts, however, believe that the party may still have an impact in the assembly elections expected to take place later this year.
“In the Lok Sabha elections, it is always the bigger national parties which perform better than the regional parties. But when it comes to the assembly elections, I do not rule out this party. They still have a chance,” said Sanjay Kumar, co-director at Lokniti at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.
Abhimanyu Bhatiya, co-founder of The School of Politics, said the JJP had a dedicated vote bank in the state and might get a decent chunk of Jat votes in the Haryana state election. “Probably the effect will be a little low in the Lok Sabha elections but high in the Assembly elections,” he said.
Jaglan disagreed, saying there is widespread discontent with JJP in farmer villages of Haryana.
Last week, Dushyant was shown black flags by farmers in the Narnaund sub-division of Hisar. The protesters alleged that he never raised his voice for the 750 farmer deaths during the farmers’ agitation against the now-repealed farm laws when his JJP was an alliance partner of the ruling BJP in Haryana. JJP did not reply to Business Standard‘s questions.
First Published: Apr 10 2024 | 3:58 PM IST
