Haryana CM calls emergency meeting of party, Independent legislators

Chandigarh, March 12 (IANS) Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Tuesday called an emergency meeting of all party legislators along with seven Independent MLAs in the state capital.

Alliance partner in the BJP-led government, the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) is non-committal on pre-poll alliance for the 2024 parliamentary elections, the BJP has started looking at Independent legislators to keep its government intact, at least till the Assembly polls likely in October.

Senior BJP leaders admit privately since the JJP has been demanding a bigger share of 10 seats for Lok Sabha elections and the issue of seat sharing remained largely unresolved at a meeting between BJP President J.P. Nadda and JJP’s leader and Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala last evening, “we have decided to go solo in the forthcoming parliamentary polls.”

Both of them met for about 45 minutes in New Delhi. According to sources, the pros and cons of fighting together were discussed at the meeting. However, the final approval has not been given yet.

Interacting with reporters in Sirsa after holding JJP’s coordination committee meeting, Dushyant on March 10 said the party is ready to contest all 10 Lok Sabha seats solo and in alliance too.

Dushyant said that they are focusing on two parliamentary seats -- Hisar and Bhiwani-Mahendragarh -- in alliance with the BJP.

Independent MLA from Haryana, Nayan Pal Rawat told the media ahead of the meeting called by the Chief Minister: “I met the Chief Minister yesterday. We have already extended our support to the Manohar Lal-led government. I got the impression that the process of breaking the alliance with JJP has already started.”

Amidst preparations by the BJP and the JJP separately to woo the electorate for the Lok Sabha polls, all independent legislators had previously met BJP in-charge for the state, Biplab Kumar Deb, on several occasions.

In the 2018 Assembly polls, the ruling BJP had won 40 seats but failed to cross the halfway mark in the 90-member Assembly.

Also eight ministers, except two, lost the polls. The rival Congress won 31 seats, while the then less-than-year-old JJP, which broke away from the state's once major regional Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) owing to family disputes, won 10 seats.

BJP, which was six short of a majority, had an alliance with the JJP.

At that time seven independent MLAs have also extended support to the BJP, helping it reach a tally of 57 seats.