BJP-JJP seals Haryana deal, Dushyant to be Deputy CM

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Jannayak Janata Party on Friday sealed the deal for government formation in Haryana.

The announcement was made by BJP President Amit Shah in the presence of JJP chief Dushyant Chautala.

“The two parties have decided to form the government to respect the mandate of the people. It has been decided that the Chief Minister will be from the BJP and the Deputy CM from the JJP,” Shah said.

On his part, Dushyant Chautala said that his party has decided to support the BJP “for the stability of the government in Haryana”.

It seems likely that Dushyant Chautala will be the new Deputy Chief Minister of Haryana.

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said that the party has called a meeting of the legislators and will meet the Governor on Saturday to stake claim.

The Chautala clan is making a comeback to power after 15 years, when the JJP leader’s grandfather Om Prakash Chautala was defeated by the Congress in the 2004 elections.

The BJP won 40 seats in the October 21 Assembly elections, seven down from its 2014 total and six short of a simple majority in the 90-member House. The JJP, which is less than a year old, won 10 seats.

Meanwhile, despite falling short by 14 seats to get the magic figure in the 90-member Haryana Assembly, the Congress is hopeful of forming government in the state with the support of Dushyant Chautala’s JJP and Independents (mostly BJP turncoats), party leaders said on Friday.

Senior Congress leader Ambika Soni said that the party will try to form the government in the state. She was addressing the media at Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi’s residence.

Soni had come to attend the meeting of senior party leaders to discuss the Congress’ stand on several important issues like Citizenship Amendment Act, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the crucial winter session of Parliament.

Also present were former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former party chief Rahul Gandhi, K C Venugopal, Rajeev Satav, Randeep Singh Surjewala, Jairam Ramesh, A K Antony, Sushmita Deb, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Ambika Soni, Ahmed Patel, Mallikarjuna Kharge, Anand Sharma, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Mohsina Kidwai.

Leader of the party in Lok Sabha,

SENIOR CONGRESS LEADER AMBIKA SONI SAID THAT THE PARTY WILL TRY TO FORM THE GOVERNMENT IN THE STATE

Chowdhury, also lauded his party’s poll run in Harayana, and termed the results as “encouraging”.

Scindia, who is also the chairman of the Maharashtra Screening Committee described the results good in both Haryana and Maharashtra and congratulated the party workers for putting the hard work in the assembly polls.

In Haryana, the ruling BJP emerged as the single largest party by winning 40 seats, but fell short of the halfway mark by 5 seats.

The Congress, on the other hand, showed significant progress from its performance in the last Assembly elections by winning 31 seats. It had got 15 in the 2014 Assembly polls.

The BJP got 36.49 per cent votes, while the Congress bagged 28.08 per cent votes.

The nearly year-old Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) was victorious in 10 constituencies, making it a possible kingmaker, along with 7 Independents. — Agencies