Shahabad MLA Ram Karan Kala bats for Dushyant Chautala

Pradeep Sharma

Chandigarh, May 13

In the war of attrition between the JJP leadership and ‘rebel’ MLAs, Shahabad MLA Ram Karan Kala yesterday threw in his lot with former Deputy CM Dushyant Chautala.

“Dushyant Chautala is the JJP leader and if anybody else wants to become the JJP leader, I am not with him. My loyalty is with Chautala alone,” Kala said in a video message. The open support by Kala has come as a relief for the leadership, which is battling a virtual revolt by a section of the party MLAs after breaking off the BJP-JJP alliance in March this year.

Loyalty with JJP leader

Dushyant Chautala is the JJP leader and if anybody else wants to become the JJP leader, I am not with him. My loyalty is with Chautala alone. — Ram Karan Kala, Shahabad MLA

In fact, Kala’s statement assumes importance after one of the ‘rebel’ MLAs and former minister Devender Babli took on the party leadership, asserting that the MLAs might elect a new leader as they had ‘lost’ faith in Chautala’s leadership. Kala is the second JJP MLA after JJP chief whip and Julana MLA Amarjeet Dhanda to openly support Chautala. Naina Chautala, Dushyant’s mother and Badhra MLA is the other legislator, who is with party leadership while other six of the 10 MLAs have been adopting rebellious postures.

The JJP had recently written to Governor, urging him to call the Assembly session for the floor test of the Nayab Singh Saini Government, which had been reduced to ‘minority’ following withdrawal of support by three Independent MLAs recently. The ‘rebel’ MLAs need the support of seven MLAs to engineer a ‘split’ to form another group. They may face disqualification as the member of the Assembly if they voted against the party whip in case of floor test of the Saini Government.