INLD, BSP join hands to contest LS, Vidhan Sabha polls in Haryana
CHANDIGARH:THE Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), principal opposition party in Haryana, and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on Wednesday announced to jointly contest the next Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha polls in Haryana.
The move seems to have political significance as the alliance has been forged a year ahead of 2019 general elections and assembly polls in the state thereafter.
However, an immediate showdown against the ruling BJP in the state seems imminent as the INLD and BSP also announced to jointly launch on May 1 a ‘jail bharo’ stir, which was earlier announced by the INLD alone.
Addressing a press conference here, INLD leader Abhay Chautala, BSP in-charge of five northern states Meghraj Singh and party’s state president Prakash Bharati claimed that their alliance in Haryana has laid the foundation of the ‘Third Front’ to save the country from the BJP and the Congress.
Details about seat-sharing or chief minister (CM) and deputy CM candidates would be announced later, they said.
To a question, however, Meghraj said BSP supremo Mayawati would decide whether or not to have truck with the Congress in elections in Uttar Pradesh.
The leaders of the two parties held that it is time the country’s political scene was freed from the party of mega-scams, the Congress, and the BJP which tended to divide the society.
“The next government would be formed by the kamera varg (workers) and not the lootera varg (looters),” Abhay said and added that the alliance slogan would be ‘Dalit, pichhda varg, kisan, Haryana ko denge nayee pehchan’ (Dalit, backward people and farmers would give a new face to Haryana).
While the INLD has its strong- hold in Jat-dominated seats (rural), the BSP has its influence especially in the reserved constituencies. There are two reserved Lok Sabha seats, namely Ambala and Sirsa, and 17 assembly constituencies in the state.
‘MODI, KHATTAR HAVE FAILED TO DELIVER’
To a query, Meghraj said that since Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar had completely failed to deliver, people of the country wanted to see Mayawati as country’s prime minister.
Notably, it is not for the first time that the two parties have joined hands in Haryana as in 1998 too, they had forged an alliance. INLD had then contested seven of the ten Lok Sabha seats in the state and won four while BSP contested three seats and won one. The two parties, however, parted ways in the consequent assembly polls.
In 2009, the BSP had also joined hands with the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC), then led by Kuldeep Bishnoi, younger son of former chief minister Bhajan Lal, but had fallen out after few days just before the assembly polls.