Dushyant Chautala's JJP, Chandra Shekhar Azad's Party Join Hands For Haryana Polls

In a pre-poll alliance, Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) and Chandra Shekhar Azad's Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) on Tuesday formed an alliance for the 90 Assembly seats in Haryana that will go to the polls on October 1.

Out of 90 seats, Dushyant Chautala's JJP, an offshoot of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), will contest on 70 seats and the Azad Samaj Party on the remaining ones.

Dushyant Chautala announced the alliance with Azad Samaj Party in Delhi on Tuesday.

Both Dushyant Chautala and Chandra Shekhar promised to fight for the rights and welfare of the farmers and form a "government of the youth".

Former state Home Minister Anil Vij on Monday claimed victory of the BJP in the forthcoming state Assembly polls, saying the regional parties were "now finished and the contest is only with the Congress, and we will easily defeat the Congress because they have committed so many sins."

In a setback to the JJP ahead of the Assembly elections, its four legislators on Saturday resigned from all party positions and their primary memberships.

A total of six legislators out of 10 have left the party. The four MLAs are former minister Anoop Dhanak, Devender Babli, Ram Karan Kala and Ishwar Singh. They have resigned from party posts, citing personal reasons.

Now only three legislators are in the party. They are Naina Chautala (Dushyant's mother), MLA from the Badhra segment in Bhiwani district; Dushyant, MLA from Uchana Kalan in Jind, and Amarjeet Dhanda, MLA from the Julana segment in Jind. Other MLAs Ram Niwas Suraj Khera and Jogi Ram Singh have been facing disqualification charges.

Ram Kumar Gautam was the first MLA to resign from the party. In October 2019, the BJP, which won 40 seats and was six short of a majority in the 90-member Assembly, formed the government in alliance with the then newly-formed JJP led by Dushyant Chautala, who was Manohar Lal Khattar's deputy in the government.

In March, the new government was formed under the helm of Nayab Singh Saini after the BJP severed its four-and-a-half-year-old ties with the JJP.

Mr Saini succeeded Mr Khattar, who is now a Union Minister.

Interestingly, the legacy of former Deputy Prime Minister and the state's tallest Jat leader, Chaudhary Devi Lal, who with his family ruled the state's dusty and defection-ridden politics for decades, is shrinking owing to the family feud.

After the feud within the INLD, five-time Chief Minister OP Chautala's grandson Dushyant split the party vertically in 2018 and formed the JJP.

In Haryana, both regional outfits -- the INLD and its fledging JJP -- bank heavily on their traditional Jat votes, comprising 28 per cent of the state's population.

This time, their "sinking ships" face a tough contest from the Congress, led by prominent Jat leader and two-time Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

However, the BJP is banking on non-Jat votes.

The INLD is banking more on its patriarch OP Chautala, who was released from Tihar Jail on July 2, 2021 after serving nine-and-a-half years of a 10-year prison sentence.

The BJP, which is in power in the state is eyeing a third-consecutive term in the polls scheduled on October 1. The ballots will be declared on October 4.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)