SAD delivers BJP a grand alliance in Haryana

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.