SAD delivers BJP a grand alliance in Haryana
Forces Navjot Singh Sidhu out of Amritsar
 "SAD delivers BJP a grand alliance in Haryana")
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is very close to repeating a Maharashtra in Haryana, but at the expense of sacrificing its sitting Amritsar member of Parliament Navjot Singh Sidhu, who is now likely to contest from the New Delhi constituency.
Sources say the BJP, in a deal its ally Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has brokered, has nearly engineered an electoral arrangement in Haryana that few thought was ever possible. The putative alliance has the potential to deliver all 10 Haryana seats as also Chandigarh’s lone seat to the National Democratic Alliance.
Akali leader Sukhbir Singh Badal, sources say, has made Haryana’s intractable political foes Om Prakash Chautala and Kuldeep Bishnoi enter into a three-way electoral arrangement with the BJP in Haryana. Chautala leads the Jat-dominated Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), while Bishnoi heads the largely dalit-supported Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC).
According to the deal, none of the three – the INLD, HJC or the BJP – would field candidates against each other in any of Haryana’s 10 Lok Sabha seats. This arrangement would ensure two-cornered fights between one of the three and the Congress.
Sources say the BJP, in a deal its ally Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has brokered, has nearly engineered an electoral arrangement in Haryana that few thought was ever possible. The putative alliance has the potential to deliver all 10 Haryana seats as also Chandigarh’s lone seat to the National Democratic Alliance.
Akali leader Sukhbir Singh Badal, sources say, has made Haryana’s intractable political foes Om Prakash Chautala and Kuldeep Bishnoi enter into a three-way electoral arrangement with the BJP in Haryana. Chautala leads the Jat-dominated Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), while Bishnoi heads the largely dalit-supported Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC).
According to the deal, none of the three – the INLD, HJC or the BJP – would field candidates against each other in any of Haryana’s 10 Lok Sabha seats. This arrangement would ensure two-cornered fights between one of the three and the Congress.
BJP strategists say there was much disaffection against the Bhupinder Singh Hooda-led Congress government both among Jats and non-Jats. Such an arrangement would nearly guarantee the Congress losing all the seats with the consolidation of anti-incumbency vote.
Sources say Badal helped sworn enemies Chautala and Bishnoi agree to the arrangement, promising future cooperation from the Punjab government to both the parties and an assurance to protect the family and clan interests of the two leaders in the Doaba region. However, this gift from the Akalis hasn't come free for the BJP. The party agreed to the Akali demand to shift former cricketer Sidhu from Amritsar.
According a source, Badal's brother-in-law Vikram Majithia has "irretrievable differences" with Sidhu. Badal's wife Harsimrat Kaur and Majithia, as well as the Amritsar unit of SAD, wanted the BJP not to retain Sidhu for that constituency.
In return, Badal delivered a truce between Chautala and Bishnoi, assuring particularly Chautala a certain degree of co-operation in the Haryana-Punjab border areas.
Sources say the entire BJP leadership, barring for Sushma Swaraj, wanted to enter into an electorally more beneficial alliance with INLD and ditch its current partner HJC. Swaraj, who hails from Haryana, opposed any truck with the INLD. She, however, finds her voice increasingly stifled within her party.
BJP strategists say Haryana's Jats, the dominant and a close-knit community, have moved away from Hooda and alienated the Congress, particularly after the teacher-recruitment scam in which Chautala was jailed. The current Haryana chief minister was so circumspect in attacking Chautala that he scolded Congress workers and asked them to stop when they burst crackers at the news of Chautala's arrest.
The Jats are firmly behind Chautala, while the dalits have also deserted the Congress and are likely to support Bishnoi after the 2010 Mirchpur riots. In the most shameful chapter in the history of the Congress government rule in the state, the Hooda government allowed the Jat police officer to continue in his position in the area despite clear evidence of dereliction of duty.
On its part, the BJP was desperate to avoid a three-cornered fight between the BJP-HJC alliance, INLD, and the Congress. Its leaders, particularly Narendra Modi, have a good rapport with Chautala. Modi was his party's Haryana in-charge before being shifted to Gujarat in 2001. Sources said the nitty-gritty of the electoral arrangement, like the number of seats each of the three get to contest from the 10, has broadly been agreed upon.
The Chautala-Bishnoi animosity dates back to the time of their fathers. Bishnoi's father Bhajan Lal, a minister in the Devi Lal government of post-1977, walked out with a group of legislators to form a government with Congress support in 1978. Chautala is Devi Lal's son.
In all of this, the loser could be former IPS officer Kiran Bedi. She was hopeful of contesting from the New Delhi seat of the BJP. Sources said her chances, at least from that seat, were now dashed with Sidhu having been pencilled in.