New Delhi:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will today visit Haryana amid the buzz that his party, the BJP, is assessing whether to dump its ally in the state and fight state elections due in October alone.
When Mr Modi inaugurates a road project at Kaithal this afternoon, BJP ally Kuldeep Bishnoi of the Haryana Janhit Congress or HJC will not be present. Sources say He has not been invited for the function.
Mr Bishnoi has reportedly written an angry letter to Mr Modi and BJP president Amit Shah some time ago complaining that state BJP leaders regularly skip sending him an invite for such functions.
The 46-year-old Haryana leader was also missing on stage at every big public rally that Mr Modi addressed in Haryana for the general elections, in which the BJP scored an emphatic victory, winning all the eight seats it contested.
The HJC lost the two seats it contested - Mr Bishnoi lost his Hisar seat to the 26-year-old Dushyant Chautala of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD).
From a public stage, where Mr Bishnoi was missing again, Amit Shah told the HJC leader last week that his insistence on contesting half of the 90 seats in Haryana was impractical given the drubbing in the general elections. Mr Bishnoi retorted that the BJP is "violating the coalition dharma."
Sources say the BJP's rethink on its alliance with Mr Bishnoi is not just about seat-sharing or that he might stake claim to being chief minister if the alliance wins the election. The ruling party is eyeing the assembly elections in four states - possibly five - this year as an opportunity to make up numbers in the Rajya Sabha, where it is in a minority and can't push legislation without the help of opposition parties.
For this, the BJP will have to contest and win as many seats as it can in the states. Rajya Sabha members are elected by members of state assemblies and legislative councils.
The BJP is counting on what it calls the "Modi wave" from the general elections three months ago to extend to these state elections.