Amid BJP flip-flop, HJC readies for assembly polls

Awash with uncertainty of continuance of alliance with Bharatiya Janata Party, Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) leader Kuldeep Bishnoi has now adopted a shrewd stance and is keeping BJP propaganda off in his rallies and speeches.

The HJC rallies at Asandh (Karnal) on Tuesday and one at Sadhaura (Yamunanagar) on Wednesday were without posters and banners of the BJP leaders. The HJC has planned to hold rallies in all the 90 segments in the coming days in view of the forthcoming assembly elections.

In alliance with the BJP, the HJC had in April this year, contested the parliamentary seats of Hisar and Sirsa and lost both, while its ally won seven of the eight seats it contested. Even Bishnoi, a sitting MP from Hisar, lost to INLD’s Dushyant Chautala, while HJC’s Sushil Indora also lost to INLD’s Charanjit Rori.

In changed political situation since Lok Sabha polls, the BJP leaders lost no time in objecting to pre-poll trucks with HJC, according to which the assembly polls for 90 seats were to be fought in 45 segments each and with Bishnoi as chief ministerial candidate. The clamour among BJP leaders over the re-think on alliance has since been getting shriller with every passing day, as they sought to give only a few seats to HJC and refused to take Bishnoi as alliance leader in the assembly poll.

At two HJC rallies — Asandh and Sadhaura —Bishnoi spoke discreetly about the alliance, as he called on his supporters to “do justice to HJC in case it goes alone to the assembly polls”.

Other HJC leaders, including Bishnoi’s elder brother and former deputy chief minister in the Congress rule Chander Mohan, and state president of the HJC traders cell Tejpal Garg, have openly flayed BJP’s changing tone and tenor over the trucks with the HJC.