The Hindu : Front Page : BJP decides to snap ties with INLD

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Tuesday, Aug 25, 2009
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BJP decides to snap ties with INLD

Rajesh Ahuja

– PHOTO: AKHILESH KUMAR

END OF AN AFFAIR: BJP general secretary Vijay Goel announcing the party’s decision to snap ties with the Indian National Lok Dal in Chandigarh on Monday.

CHANDIGARH: The Bharatiya Janata Party, which had entered into an electoral alliance with the Indian National Lok Dal on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections not long ago, parted company with the Chautala clan on Monday.

Now the BJP would announce its candidates for the 90 Haryana Assembly seats within a fortnight or so, former Union Minister and BJP leader in charge of Haryana affairs Vijay Goel said here addressing a press conference.

Interestingly, the BJP had extended support to the late Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal (father of INLD chief Om Parkash Chautala) in the 1980s and later withdrawn it. Then the BJP had entered into an alliance with the Haryana Vikas Party (HVP) in 1996 but later pulled out in 1999. It had once again supported Mr. Chautala in 1999-2000 but later dissociated itself and contested the 2004 Lok Sabha and 2005 Haryana Assembly polls on its own.

However, it revived its ties with the INLD late last year and Mr. Chautala even switched over to the NDA from the so-called Third Front. But the alliance was not acceptable to BJP grassroots workers who did not transfer votes to the INLD nominees in the urban areas in the recent polls.

There were undercurrents in the BJP that since the political scenario had changed following the failure of the two alliance partners to win even a single Lok Sabha seat from the State and the spate of defections from the INLD, the seat-sharing formula should be “reworked” or the alliance called off. Both parties had contested five each of the 10 Lok Sabha seats from the State. According to information reaching here, seat-sharing talks between the BJP leaders and Mr. Chautala failed in New Delhi on Monday with the latter not willing to concede 45 seats to the BJP on an equal sharing formula. Mr. Goel told reporters here that the alliance had “crumbled” because of INLD’s “adamant” stand over the seat-sharing formula.

He said the INLD had failed to acknowledge “the changed ground realities” and was not willing to listen to the BJP’s arguments for a 45-45 seat sharing formula.

Haryana BJP president Krishan Pal Gurjar told media persons that the BJP was the only party raising public issues like price rise and so on and it would certainly form the next government in the State.

Meanwhile, the INLD has convened a meeting of its political affairs committee here on August 27 to discuss “the current political situation, the conditions arising from BJP’s announcement to break the alliance, preparations for the Vidhan Sabha elections and the future policy of the party”. Mr. Chautala will preside over the meeting.

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