CHANDIGARH: Kuldeep Bishnoi-led Haryana Janhit Congress on Thursday snapped its three-year-old ties with BJP ahead of assembly elections in the state accusing it of “repeated betrayal”, and decided to join hands with former Congress leader Venod Sharma’s Jan Chetna Party (JCP).
The BJP, which had been giving indications that it was not averse to going it alone after the Lok Sabha poll success, hit back saying Bishnoi was “a general without an Army” and was suffering from “delusion of becoming chief minister”.
Announcing the decision to break the alliance with BJP, HJC-BL chief Bishnoi, younger son of former Haryana Chief Minister late Bhajan Lal, said the party which cared less for its own stalwarts like A B Vajpayee and L K Advani could not be trusted anymore.
“We tried our level best to keep the alliance working… made sincere efforts…They (BJP) are not ready to stick to the agreed alliance principles,” Bishnoi said at a press conference here, adding that his party would join hands with former Union minister Venod Sharma’s Jan Chetna Party (JCP) before the state polls, likely to be held in October.
BJP, however, refuted the charges that it betrayed the Haryana outfit.
“We have never betrayed any ally… We wanted him (Bishnoi) to understand ground realities… He has left us acting like a B-team of Congress. He had six MLAs and all of them except him joined Congress. He is a general without an Army,” BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said in Delhi.
The formal parting came after a bitter spat between the parties over seat-sharing and the chief ministerial nominee. Bishnoi charged that “the BJP wants to weaken and wipe out the regional parties. They make use of regional parties to make themselves strong and later dump them”.
He said there was no longer any “Modi Wave” and things are always different during the Lok Sabha polls and in the state polls.
“We are going to people and asking their help and let them decide what punishment they want to give to those who have betrayed us,” he said. (PTI)
Rift within BJP-HJC alliance surfaced soon after the Lok Sabha poll results, as the Bishnoi-led outfit failed to win any of the two seats it had contested while BJP bagged seven out of eight constituencies it fought in the state.
