Chandigarh: Haryana deputy Chief Minister and Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) leader Dushyant Chautala cited the cost of holding two elections within a span of a few months, and the ‘pressure’ on manpower, as he reiterated his support for simultaneous parliamentary and assembly elections in the state next year, in a conversation with ThePrint.
While general elections in the country are due in May next year, Haryana is due to vote for the assembly by October 2024.
“We have always been in favour of holding parliamentary and assembly polls simultaneously in Haryana because they are due within a gap of five to six months. The government has to bear double the cost of holding [the two] elections and the entire official machinery too has to remain busy for more than six months on this job,” Chautala told ThePrint.
Asked whether he had spoken to Haryana CM and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Manohar Lal Khattar on this, Chautala said that while he couldn’t comment on the BJP leadership’s thoughts on the issue, there was a consensus with the JJP on simultaneous polls.
The JJP and the BJP are part of the ruling coalition in Haryana.
“Even when the Election Commission of India [ECI] visited Haryana last year, the JJP had given its view that the party wanted the parliamentary and assembly elections to be held simultaneously,” Chautala said.
Speaking to ThePrint, Parveen Jorra, member of the BJP’s state executive said the decision to hold parliamentary and assembly elections simultaneously or separately was for the BJP’s central leadership to decide.
Chautala had voiced support for simultaneous elections in the state in the coming year while speaking at a public gathering in Gehli village, Mahendragarh Sunday, and said that his party was all set to face the 2024 assembly and Lok Sabha elections.
“Our organisation has completed all preparations and we are ready to face the polls. Our active workers are preparing for polls in every assembly and parliamentary seat. We have fulfilled most of our poll promises and we are making efforts to increase the pension amount of elderly people,” the Haryana deputy CM had said.
There have been no simultaneous polls in the state at least in more than two decades. General and assembly elections were held separately, within a gap of five to six months, in Haryana in the years 2009, 2014 and 2019.
According to Haryana-based political analyst Yogendra Gupta, “Parliamentary elections are contested on national issues. During the past two or three elections, the Lok Sabha elections have been contested on very strong national sentiments. In such a situation, the regional parties are left with very little premise to contest the polls.
Gupta added: “If they [regional parties] fail to win any Parliamentary seats, the party cadre is highly demoralised and it becomes very difficult to make party workers campaign for the assembly polls with enthusiasm within six months of the Parliamentary polls.”
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Wins and losses
In the 2019 parliamentary elections, Chautala had contested from Hisar against the BJP’s Brijendra Singh and the Congress’s Kuldeep Bishnoi, while his younger brother Digvijay Chautala had contested from Sonipat against the BJP’s Ramesh Kaushik and the Congress’s Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
However, the JJP lost all 10 seats it contested.
In the assembly elections held in October that year, the JJP was able to win 10 seats, with Chautala himself defeating senior BJP leader and former Union Minister Birendra Singh’s wife Prem Lata from the Uchana Kalan seat.
The results were still far below the party’s expectations though.
In the 2014 assembly election, the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) had won 31 seats in the 90-member assembly, but in 2019, INLD could win just 1, while the JJP (a split-away party of the INLD) won 10.
The JJP went on to enter into an alliance with the BJP following the 2019 assembly polls and Chautala became deputy CM in the Khattar-led government.
In the Parliamentary elections held in May 2014, the Kuldeep Bishnoi-led Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) had been in alliance with the BJP.
While the BJP recorded a landslide victory across the country and the saffron party won eight of eight seats it contested in Haryana, HJC lost both seats it contested, with Bishnoi himself losing from Hisar.
The BJP broke the alliance with Bishnoi’s party before the 2014 assembly polls and a highly demoralised HJC won just two seats — while Bishnoi himself won from Adampur, his wife Renuka Bishnoi won from Hansi.
In the 2009 elections the Om Prakash Chautala-led INLD, out of power for five years, lost all 10 seats it contested in the parliamentary elections.
In the assembly polls held in October that year, however, it won 32 seats, while the Bhupinder Singh-led Congress won 40 seats — the maximum by any party.
A senior INLD leader told ThePrint that Om Prakash Chautala would often say that had he known that the party would come so close to the ruling party’s tally in 2009, he would have employed more resources in the elections. According to the INLD leader, the party’s dismal performance in the parliamentary elections had demoralised the party to an extent that the leadership took the assembly election somewhat lightly.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)