Chandigarh, September 04: The honeymoon between the Bahujan Samaj Party ( BSP) and the Haryana Janhit Congress ( HJC) is over.
The BSP decided to call off the alliance on Thursday over differences with the HJC over a proposed electoral tie-up with the Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP) in Haryana.
The BSP’s national general secretary, Mann Singh Manhera, said in Rohtak that HJC president Kuldeep Bishnoi had been pressuring his party for a poll alliance with BJP. He said the matter was taken up with BSP president and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati.
But she warned the party’s state unit against any alliance with ” communal forces” and directed it to snap ties with the HJC, Manhera said.
” It is true that we had entered into an alliance about two months ago. But the HJC’s intentions to forge a poll agreement with a communal party is against the ideology of the BSP,” he said.
The HJC had announced a tie- up
with the BSP for the assembly polls, scheduled for October 13.
The split in the Opposition alliance ahead of the assembly polls has brought cheers to the ruling Congress. It now hopes to harp on its popularity and the disarray in the Opposition camp to come back to power.
The BJP has already parted ways with the Indian National Lok Dal ( INLD) led by Om Prakash Chautala, paving the way for a multi- cornered contest on most seats. The BSP- HJC alliance, which could have potentially damaged the Congress, would now lead to further split in the Opposition votes.
Interestingly, chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had earlier predicted a break- up between the two Opposition alliances. He had said the BJPINLD and the BSP- HJC tie- ups in the state would not last long as these parties were together just for ” political opportunism”. But Bishnoi and Manhera had on August 26 had claimed that
their alliance was solid and that they would contest all the 90 assembly seats in Haryana.
State Congress leaders believe the split would help their party.
” The split proves that the Opposition has given in even before the elections are held. We already have an edge and are confident of repeating the grand performance of the Lok Sabha elections in the assembly polls, too,” said Surender Hooda, press secretary of the Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee.
The HJC was floated in December in 2007 after Bishnoi and his father and former chief minister Bhajan Lal were expelled from the Congress. Bhajan Lal is the HJC chairman.
Sources said Bishnoi’s sisterin- law Seema Bishnoi may also contest elections on an HJC ticket. Sources said party supporters had been trying to persuade her to contest from Panchkula. Seema reportedly assured them that she would consider it if her father- in- law Bhajan Lal gave his permission.
Seema’s husband and former deputy chief minister Chander Mohan, who landed in a controversy over his second marriage to Anuradha Bali aka Fiza after converting into Islam, however, stands a bleak chance of getting a Congress ticket this time.
Chander Mohan, who was Congress MLA from Kalka, later dumped Fiza and re- embraced Hinduism. But there was no question of the Congress giving him a ticket, a senior party leader said, adding that he was free to join his father and brother’s party.
—Agencies