Gurugram: The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) have come together again to formally announce their alliance for the upcoming Haryana polls.
In April 2018, the INLD had formed an alliance with the Mayawati-led party ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. But following a split in the INLD in 2018, along with the INLD’s poor performance in the 2019 Jind bypolls, the BSP had decided to call off the alliance.
Previously, the two parties had allied for the 1998 Lok Sabha elections, with the INLD contesting 7 seats and the BSP 3 in Haryana. That year, the INLD and the BSP won 4 and 1 seats, respectively.
Chautala is the sole INLD MLA in the 90-member Haryana Assembly, while the BSP has no members.
At a joint press conference Thursday, INLD secretary general Abhay Chautala and Mayawati’s nephew Akash Anand announced that the Haryana based party would contest 53 out of the 90 assembly seats while the remaining 37 were allotted to the BSP.
As part of this alliance, the leaders have decided to project INLD leader Abhay Chautala as their chief ministerial candidate.
“We have decided to fight the upcoming Assembly elections in Haryana together. Today, the common people have made up their minds to oust the BJP from power and keep the Congress away, which looted the state for ten years,” Chautala said.
BSP’s Anand announced that the alliance would not be limited to the assembly elections alone, and they would contest other elections in the state together in the future as well.
After the announcement of the alliance, BSP chief Mayawati posted on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) that the BSP and INLD will work together to defeat anti-people parties and form a new coalition government.
1. बहुजन समाज पार्टी व इण्डियन नेशनल लोकदल मिलकर हरियाणा में होने वाले विधानसभा आमचुनाव में वहाँ की जनविरोधी पार्टियों को हराकर अपने नये गठबन्धन की सरकार बनाने के संकल्प के साथ लड़ेंगे, जिसकी घोषणा मेरे पूरे आशीर्वाद के साथ आज चण्डीगढ़ में संयुक्त प्रेसवार्ता में की गयी। 1/3
— Mayawati (@Mayawati) July 11, 2024
The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister hoped that the unity between the two parties would help defeat the opponents and form a new government.
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Will Mayawati play spoilsport to Congress?
In the general elections, the BJP’s seats were reduced to from 10 to 5 seats in Haryana where the Congress shared the spoils equally.
Ambala and Sirsa — the two Parliamentary seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes — went to the Congress. As many as 13 of the 17 assembly segments reserved for the SCs went to its kitty.
The results suggested that Jats and the SCs largely voted for the Congress. Now, with the INLD, a party led by a Jat family, and the BSP led by Mayawati, a Dalit, coming together, it is being discussed in the political circles whether the alliance will be able to play spoilsport for the Congress that sees this election as an opportunity to come back to power after 10 years.
Political analyst Mahabir Jaglan said he didn’t have much hope for this alliance.
“One just needs to look at the past performances of both parties before arriving at any conclusion. Their combined vote share was 3.15 percent in the general elections. If we look at their records in the 2019 assembly polls, the BSP received 4.21 percent votes and INLD got 2.44 percent. In 2014, the BSP’s vote share was 4.4 percent. The INLD got 24.1 percent vote but that was an undivided INLD. The party has weakened a lot after a split in 2018,” Jaglan explained.
He said that the Jats and Dalits stood firmly behind the Congress in the Lok Sabha polls and that unless something dramatic happened, it was unlikely that the Congress would lose their support in the assembly elections.
He said that the performance of Congress on the seats reserved for the SCs shows that the Dalits have supported the party this time.
In contrast, the INLD and the BSP contested 7 and 9 LS seats and both were blanked. The INLD’s vote share was 1.87 percent, whereas the BSP managed 1.28 percent vote share.
At the Chandigarh press conference, Chautala invited other anti-Congress and anti-BJP parties to join the alliance and form a strong front. “If necessary, we can talk to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as well,” he said in response to a question.
He added that a committee would be formed to engage with other parties but did not respond to whether the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) could join this alliance.
Chautala also announced a number of sops for the people if the INLD-BSP alliance comes to power. “We will make arrangements so that no household has an electricity bill of more than Rs 500 (per month). No charges will be levied for drinking water,” he said.
Other promises include increasing the old-age pension from Rs 3,000 per month to Rs 7,500, providing a free LPG cylinder to each household along with Rs 1,100 for kitchen expenses to women, giving an unemployment allowance of Rs 21,000 per year to unemployed youth, and providing 100 sq yard plot to poor Scheduled Caste people.
The INLD leader further said that previously vacant posts related to SCs would be filled and assured that the old pension scheme would be reinstated. Chautala stated that all these promises would be fulfilled in the first meeting of the cabinet.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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