Haryana's regional parties woo BJP (Haryana Newsletter)

With Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi its new icon, Haryana's leading state-based parties are actively courting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The BJP has never been a major political force in Haryana's Jat-dominated politics. It has been forming alliances in the state as it is not really capable of going it alone despite its national identity.

The ruling Congress is the only national party to have a state-wide dominance.

With the Lok Sabha elections likely in May next year and Haryana's assembly elections to follow in October, the BJP finds itself being wooed by two leading political contenders.

Officially, the BJP is allied with the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) of Hisar MP Kuldeep Bishnoi, son of former Congress chief minister and political heavyweight Bhajan Lal.

The BJP has announced that its alliance with HJC is "solid" and that both the parties will contest the Lok Sabha and assembly elections together.

HJC leader Kuldeep Bishnoi, who was a Congress MP till 2008, has shared the stage with BJP national leaders like Modi, Sushma Swaraj, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari and others in recent months.

The BJP leadership has even announced that Bishnoi will be the chief minister if the HJC-BJP alliance win the assembly elections.

In the past, the BJP had allied with the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and was even part of its government.

However, the BJP pulled out of the INLD alliance before the 2009 assembly elections owing to differences with INLD. In what was a major blow, the BJP bagged only four of the 90 seats.

In contrast, the HJC, which was a first-time entrant in the last assembly polls, won six assembly seats. But five of its newly elected legislators defected to the ruling Congress, leaving Bishnoi alone.

Some believe that a BJP-INLD alliance would give a tough fight to the Congress and its Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who has held the post since March 2005.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal wants the INLD and BJP to get together. He had told them to overcome their differences.

The statement was made in the presence of top INLD leaders and BJP's national vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, who attended the INLD rally at Kurukshetra Nov 1.

The INLD, whose two top leaders -- former chief minister Om Prakash Chautala and his elder son Ajay Chautala -- are in jail after their conviction in January this year in a teacher recruitment scam is not averse to allying with the BJP.

But the HJC has made it clear that it won't ally with the INLD -- directly or indirectly. And so the BJP has work to do: whom to ally with in order to oust the Congress in Haryana?