Chautala hints at seat arrangement with NDA for UP elections

C R Rathee

GURGAON: In a potentially interesting political development, the Haryana chief minister, Om Prakash Chautala, has confided in close circles, including his elder son Ajay Chautala, MP, and political advisor, Sher Singh Badshami, that it was becoming gradually likely that the National Democratic Alliance may agree to a seat-sharing arrangement with Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) in the forthcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

Mr Chautala hinted this at a meeting of INLD activists of Haryana held at Pehowa (in Kurukshetra district). Ajay Chautala confirmed that his father has taken recourse to this line.

Though Ajay Chautala too did not touch the sensitive issue of INLD contesting as a NDA partner, even if his arch political adversary, Union agriculture minister, Ajit Singh, has also been accommodated in the NDA for the UP assembly polls. This turn-around only four days after O P Chautala’s announcement at a public meeting at Hathras (UP) that INLD may tie-up with Kanshi Ram’s Bahujan Samaj Party for the UP assembly polls, is both interesting and intriguing for the region’s political analysts.

A shrewd politician, Mr Chautala, made repeated sarcastic remarks about BJP’s Haryana unit stating that the party simply could not win the by-election to the prestigious Yamunanagar seat of the Haryana Vidhan Sabha, vacated by the recent death of the Congress MLA, J P Sharma, whereas the INLD can.

The Yamunanagar seat came to BJP’s fold in the 1998 assembly poll in Haryana. The party’s stalwart and former minister, Kamla Verma lost heavily to the Congress. Since then, the INLD has built a powerful base in Yamunanagar and can win the seat on its own, Mr Chautala claims. But he is not in favour of breaking the alliance, irritants by the state BJP leaders notwithstanding.

Ajay Chautala told The Financial Express in an exclusive interview on Tuesday that though the Haryana BJP leadership was behaving in a politically irresponsible manner, despite it being INLD’s ally, the latter was is no mood to cause a strain in the NDA at the Centre. More so at this crucial moment of history when Pakistan was threatening an all-out war with India.

Evading a straight answer to the question whether NDA would also allocate some seats to Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), Ajay Chautala said that the RLD was not yet a partner of the NDA. As such, the party could not lay claim to any assembly seat in western UP. The INLD can, he added.

Affirming that he was speaking on behalf of his father, Ajay reiterated that the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) of Punjab chief minister Prakash Singh Badal had given a categorical assurance to extend support to INLD nominees in the UP assembly polls, should the party contest as NDA partner.

Mr Badal’s son, Sukhbir Badal, and a former union minister who was with Ajay, confirmed that the SAD was opposed to leaving western UP to a self-anointed Kisan Neta like Ajit Singh. Both Ajay and Sukhbir, however, evaded a reply to the question whether their parties would oppose Ajit Singh’s nominees if they contested on signal from the NDA leadership.