Chandigarh: Amid the ongoing slugfest between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ally, the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), the latter Tuesday termed Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s appeal to voters to give the BJP all 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana as ‘daydreaming’.
On Sunday, Amit Shah appealed to voters at a public meeting in Sirsa — home turf of the JJP’s Chautala clan — to help the BJP win all 10 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the general election next year.
Asked about Shah’s appeal in Bhiwani, JJP secretary general Digvijay Chautala Tuesday termed it “hawa hawai daave”. Loosely translated, the term means building castles in the air or daydreaming.
Amid speculation over whether the two alliance partners will contest the 2024 general election together, this was the first time a JJP leader, and a member of the Chautala family no less, dismissed the BJP’s appeal.
“For any party, claims to victory at this moment is like building castles in the air. We have to go among the people. The Lok Sabha elections are still a long way to go. We have to win people’s trust. People are now looking to regional parties,” Chautala said.
Digvijay, the younger brother of Haryana Deputy CM Dushyant Chautala, added, “Most MPs today, as you have seen, are missing. They don’t even look after their own constituencies.”
Referring to his elder brother Dushyant and father Ajay Singh Chautala, Digvijay said that the people of Hisar and Bhiwani, respectively, still remember their tenures as MPs representing the region. “People will make such individuals who work for them the heroes. This is why this claim that we will win 10 seats is nothing other than building castles in the air. The JJP is strengthening itself with full force for the Lok Sabha elections.”
While Digvijay’s elder brother Dushyant was MP from Hisar from 2014 to 2019, their father Ajay Singh Chautala represented the Bhiwani seat in the Lower House from 1999 to 2004. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, BJP’s Brijendra Singh defeated Dushyant to wrestle the Hisar seat, while the Bhiwani seat was retained by incumbent MP Dharambir Singh of the BJP.
Digvijay’s “missing MPs” remark, therefore, is being seen as a jibe at BJP MLAs Brijendra Singh and Dharamvir Singh.
Also Read: Khattar takes swipe at JJP MLA, but says ‘alliance for public good, will continue’
‘Which alliance are you talking about?’
It is also important to note that Digvijay Chautala’s statement came a day after BJP’s in charge for Haryana, Biplab Kumar Deb, undermined the alliance with the JJP during an interaction with reporters in Bhiwani. Deb was in Charkhi Dadri Monday when he was asked about whether the BJP-JJP alliance will hold until the general election next year.
“Kaun sa alliance bhai, sabhi dus seat toh humaari hai (Which alliance are you talking about, brother? All ten seats are ours),” the former Tripura CM said.
Relations between the BJP and the JJP have been in the doldrums ever since January this year when Amit Shah while addressing a rally in Gohana said he was “confident that BJP’s lotus will bloom in every Lok Sabha seat” in the state.
In statements that followed, Biplab Kumar Deb, Haryana BJP chief O.P. Dhankar and former state minister Captain Abhimanyu hinted that the BJP and JJP had joined hands to form a government and not to contest elections together.
In an interview with ThePrint earlier this month, Dushyant Chautala too said that the JJP was preparing to contest all 10 Lok Sabha seats, just like the BJP, and that the issue of the alliance will be taken up as elections approach.
The BJP had won all 10 seats in Haryana in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. However, in the assembly elections held five months later, the BJP fell short of the majority mark when it won 40 of 90 seats. The party then had to enter into a post-poll alliance with the JJP, which won 10 seats, to return to power in the state with Manohar Lal Khattar as chief minister.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
Also Read: As BJP-JJP tussle for Dushyant’s seat heats up in Haryana, alliance pushed to brink ahead of polls