JJP, INLD face uphill battle as core voters drift away

The upcoming Lok Sabha and Haryana Assembly polls seem to be a battle for survival for the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and its breakaway faction Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), which is facing the ire of its core voters for its “antifarmer” stance during the yearlong stir against the Centre’s nowwithdrawn farm laws.

The JJP — led by Ajay Singh Chautala — came into existence in December 2018 after a vertical split in the INLD following a feud in the Chautala family and formed a coalition government with the BJP in 2019.

It has 10 MLAs in the Haryana Assembly.

The INLD, led by former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala, too was reduced to a single seat in the 2019 poll, five years after it finished as runnerup in the 2014 Assembly election with 19 seats.

Any further weakening of the two parties would also mean an end to the several decadesold dominance of the regional political force led by the Chautalas in the State. While the image of JJP leader and Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala — once seen as the next Chaudhary Devi Lal — took a hit after the farmers’ agitation, the party’s failure to deliver on its two most important electoral promises – ₹5,100 monthly oldage pension and reservation in private sector jobs — added to its woes.

Trying hard to make the party stand on its feet again, INLD secretary general Abhay Chautala too had taken took out a Statewide “padyatra” last year but his outfit failed to catch people’s imagination due to the lack of a charismatic leadership.

Revival in doldrums

The INLD’s efforts for a tieup with the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party ahead of the Lok Sabha poll, too, have fallen flat — a major setback to its revival plan. Prof. Rajendra Sharma, head of the Political Science Department at Rohtak’s Maharishi Dayanand University said the JJP’s alliance with the BJP for Lok Sabha poll, which would be a confirmation for their prepoll alliance for the Assembly election as well, could be the only hope for its survival. “The JJP has lost much of its goodwill in the past five years because of the farmers’ movement. It is on a sticky wicket. An alliance with the BJP will give it some breather, else it will be a wiped out. The JJP has nothing significant to claim in terms of bringing any new policy or scheme. So far, as the reservation in private jobs is considered, everybody knew it was a hoax,” said Mr. Sharma.

He said the rise of the BJP in States has been at the cost of regional parties. “In Haryana too, the BJP has replaced the INLD to occupy the political space once held by it. The INLD may replace the JJP but is unlikely to regain its old glory,” said Mr. Sharma, a former researcher at the Centre for Policy Research. The fact that the two regional parties depend heavily on the Jat votes and face tough competition from the Congress, also led by prominent Jat leader and twotime Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, has also not helped their cause. Mr. Sharma said the Jats had already shifted to Mr. Hooda in a big way as they thought that he alone could challenge the BJP.

The political history of the State too does not offer much hope to the JJP as almost all new political outfits launched over the past two decades have failed to make any mark.