Chandigarh, January 20
The INLD-BJP alliance in Haryana is in tatters following today’s announcement by the Chief Minister, Mr Om Prakash Chautala, that the INLD would field its candidate in the Yamunanagar Assembly byelection. The BJP has already announced the candidature of Mr Ghanshyam Sharma from there.
Though Mr Chautala said here today that he would declare the party candidate after consulting the people of Yamunanagar, he left no doubt that the party ticket would be given to a former MLA, Mr M.C. Gambhir, whose resignation as the Chairman of the Haryana School Education Board, he said, had already been accepted.
The INLD candidate will file his nomination papers on January 23 and Mr Chautala will accompany him.
Expressing his annoyance over the way the BJP announced its candidate without “taking us into confidence”, Mr Chautala said certain state BJP leaders like Mr Krishan Pal Gujjar, Leader of the Legislature Party, had been not only criticising the state government but also voting against it for the past two years.
However, Mr Chautala maintained that despite a “friendly contest” between the INLD and the BJP in Yamunanagar, his alliance with the BJP would continue. He said the INLD support to the Vajpayee government would not be affected by today’s announcement.
Mr Chautala’s volte-face has come in the wake of the rebuff given to his party by the UP unit of the BJP, which has refused to enter into any electoral alliance with the INLD in western UP. Mr Chautala was also peeved at the statements of certain Central and UP BJP leaders who had ridiculed his claim of having significant support to the INLD in western UP, where he organised a series of rallies on the plank of creation of a separate state in the past few months.
Mr Chautala also announced that his party would go it alone in UP, where it was in the process of identifying the constituencies in which its candidates would be in a winning position. The list
of candidates would be made public within two days. This announcement has come after the INLD’s efforts for an alliance with certain U.P. parties like the BSP and the SP failed.
The INLD supremo was also not very happy with the handling of Indo-Pak relations by the Vajpayee government. He said allowing Gen Pervez Musharraf to invite Hurriyat leaders to tea in our own country was a sign of weakness. Similarly, he said the Centre should have abrogated the Indus Water Treaty, which would have hurt Pakistan more than steps like disallowing PIA flights over Indian territory.
No BJP leader was available for comment on Mr Chautala’s announcement.
Meanwhile, a spokesman of the Haryana Congress, Dr K.V. Singh, said the INLD and the BJP should stop befooling the people. The facade of an alliance between the two parties had been finally taken off. He said Mr Chautala was, however, t rying to pull a fast one on the people by saying that his support to the Vajpayee government would continue. He said the Congress stood to gain in a triangular contest.
