Saturday, May 18, 2013

New Delhi: The imprisoned former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala has become hot property politically following a strain in ties between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Janhit Congress party.

Top leaders of the BJP and the Janata Dal-United called on Chautala, who heads Haryana’s principal opposition Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), indicating the possible realignment of forces ahead of next year’s general elections.

Chautala, along with his oldest son Ajay Singh Chautala, was sentenced to =10 years in jail by a Delhi court in January this year after being found guilty in the 2000 junior teachers recruitment scam. He is currently undergoing various tests at the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital after the Delhi High Court ordered a medical board to examine his health on Thursday. Chautala is seeking an interim bail based on medical grounds.

BJP president Rajnath Singh and senior vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi visited Chautala, aged 78, at his hospital room on Thursday and spent up to one hour with him. While the meeting was officially named a courtesy call, BJP leaders later admitted that they discussed various political issues with him.

The meeting was followed by a visit of the JD-U president Sharad Yadav on Friday. Yadav is the convenor of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) of which Chautala’s INLD was a constituent in the past.

The BJP had of late moved closer to the Janhit Congress, a breakaway faction of the state’s ruling Congress party. However, the two-year-old ties between the two parties have come under pressure following Janhit Congress chief Kuldeep Bishnoi’s decision to allow the party workers to contest the civic body polls slated for next month on their own. Bishnoi justified it by saying their ties are restricted to the assembly and parliamentary elections only.

BJP leadership is angry by the Bishnoi’s decision and is weighing their options since assembly elections in Haryana will be held along with those of the Lok Sabha next year.

While sympathy for Chautala has grown since many feel he was framed into the scam by the Congress party due to political reasons. His party, however, is in disarray with his younger son Abhay Chautala and grandsons trying to keep the party alive.

An alliance with the INLD may help the BJP emerge stronger in Haryana considering the NDA is making a desperate attempt to dislodge the Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance from power at the centre in which the 10 Lok Sabha seats of Haryana may matter a lot.

By Ajay Jha Chief Correspondent

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