Maharashtra Poll Virus Infects Haryana, BJP Ally Akali Dal To Campaign For Chautala

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, clearly not very happy about the regional alliances building against him in Maharashtra and now even Haryana, gave vent to his anger while addressing a public rally at Mahendragarh as part of his intense campaign tour of the two poll going states. “I want a team India where the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister work together. Do you want to elect a government that feels like vomiting on hearing about the central (BJ) government,” the PM is quoted as having said on the news television channels.

The BJP that has been left now to contest the forthcoming Assembly elections on its own in Maharashtra and Haryana is under severe attack from the regional parties in particular in both states. Former ally Shiv Sena has turned into an arch rival on the eve of the elections in Maharashtra, berating PM Modi and the BJP directly, in the heated campaign. Ally the Shiromani Akali Dal while maintaining faith in the Lok Sabha alliance with the BJP, announced its decision to campaign for the Indian National Lok Dal and its current chief in jail Om Prakash Chautala in the Haryana polls. This has come as a major setback to the BJP that had placed considerable effort in trying to persuade the Akali Dal and chief minister Parkash Singh Badal to remain true to the older alliance at the centre.

“I will be campaigning for the INLD in Haryana Assembly elections,” Badal said categorically about the Akali Dal’s position, more so as he has been appointed the star campaigner for te party.Punjab Deputy Chief Minister and SAD President Sukhbir Singh Badal clarified to reporters that, “The SAD’s ties with the BJP in Punjab are permanent and not open to any speculation or conjecture. But in Haryana, SAD is in alliance with INLD. The alliance would fight the forthcoming civic polls together as per its traditional seat-sharing formula.”

Only recently the one regional ally that the BJP had managed to secure, Haryana Janhit Congress walked out of the NDA because of serious differences over seat allocations in Haryana. Its chief Kuldeep Bishnoi had asked for 45 of the 90 Assembly seats at a time when the BJP, as in Maharashtra, was determined to contest the majority of the constituencies in a bid to form its own government in these states. Given its failure to strike the right chords with the regional parties it now finds itself isolated with Bishnoi now working hard to tie up the smaller parties in Haryana along with the Bahujan Samaj party into an alliance of sorts. This then leaves the BJP quite friendless in Haryana as well with a loose coalition emerging between the rest.

INLD is now a part of an alliance being roughly stitched up by Janata Dal(U) with Nitish Kumar and president Sharad Pawar in the lead. Both Kumar and Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad Yadav have said that they will be campaigning in Haryana for INLD that seems to still have a stronger base in the state than for instance the Congress party. However, while this remains a matter of speculation it is true that the BJP is now over-reliant on PM Modi’s old charisma to sweep it into power in the Assemblies of Maharashtra and Haryana, as he had in the Lok Sabha. But at that time the NDA alliances were intact, and local issues had not dominated the campaign and the polling.

The multi-cornered contest in Maharashtra is a source of worry for the BJP that had been predicting at least 125 of the 288 Assembly seats for itself. PM Modi, commenting on the opposition to him said at one of his rallies, “During the Lok Sabha election campaign, I never saw people crying because I was addressing rallies. But now, I see people are crying that I am addressing rallies in Maharashtra and Haryana.” He, however, did not name the Shiv Sena which has been carrying on a consistent campaign against Modi’s decision to campaign like a local leader, even asking why he was concentrating on state politics as the Prime Minister when Pakistani forces are shelling Indian villages in Jammu and Kashmir. The Sena raised questions about the Modi government’s performance adding that his frequent visits for the campaign was costing the state exchequer.