Chandigarh: A week after Haryana deputy chief minister and Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) president Dushyant Singh Chautala said that he was not an astrologer and could not say whether the state’s BJP-JJP alliance would continue for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, senior BJP leader Captain Abhimanyu Saturday told ThePrint that people did not want “an alliance of compulsions” and that “the BJP won’t need the JJP next year”.
“The BJP and JJP contested the 2019 elections separately and sought votes against each other. We had made a set of political promises to the electorate. The JJP had its own set of promises. We won 40 seats, (in the 90-member assembly) while the JJP got 10,” he said.
Explaining why the BJP-led post poll alliance formed in 2019 was one of compulsions, he added: “Leading the single-largest party (BJP) in the state, CM Khattar had a responsibility to provide a stable government to the people of Haryana which could fulfil their aspirations. The JJP, with 10 seats, came into the picture and lent its support to the BJP to run the government. This is how I describe this government as a government of compulsions.”
In the first Khattar government in Haryana (2014 to 2019), Captain Abhimanyu was number three in protocol after CM Manohar Lal Khattar and state minister Ram Bilas Sharma. He held a number of key portfolios, including finance.
Captain Abhimanyu, however, lost the 2019 assembly polls from Narnaund seat to Ram Kumar Gautam, an estranged MLA of the JJP.
Talking to ThePrint, he further said that the “people of Haryana never like an alliance of compulsions, because it lacks the marriage of ideologies”.
“I am very sure the BJP won’t need the JJP in the 2024 elections because the party is going to win all 10 (Lok Sabha) seats in Haryana on its own and will also form a government (after the state polls) for the third time in a row — this time, without the support of the JJP or any other party,” Captain Abhimanyu said.
His statements assume significance after Chautala’s “not an astrologer” remark, since he is considered close to Union home minister Amit Shah. Captain Abhimanyu is also a decorated soldier who retired voluntarily from the Army and cleared the civil services exam.
The Print reached Dushyant Chautala for comment via calls but was told he was unavailable. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
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‘Who asked them to go for it?’
Reacting to Captain Abhimanyu’s remarks, JJP’s Haryana unit president Nishan Singh asked that if the JJP-BJP alliance was one of “compulsions”, “who asked them to go for it?”
“There is nothing new in Captain Abhimanyu saying that the two parties had contested the 2019 elections against each other and then formed an alliance (post-poll) to provide a stable government to the people. We too have maintained that this alliance was meant to provide a stable government,” Singh told ThePrint.
He added, “If the JJP has lacked anywhere in its duty to provide a stable government, they should tell us. But to say that this is an alliance of compulsion and people don’t like it, doesn’t behoove a senior leader of the BJP.”
Singh further pointed out that “alliances are always like that” and “political parties enter into an alliance only when they feel the need for it”.
“Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had formed a government in alliance with 18 political parties. Will Captain Abhimanyu term Vajpayee’s government as an alliance of compulsion,” he asked.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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