JOIN USAfter breaking with their alliance partners in Haryana in the Lok Sabha polls, the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) and Mayawati-led BSP on Sunday announced they were entering into a coalition for the upcoming Assembly elections in the state.
The BSP will contest 50 out of 90 Assembly seats while the rest 40 will be contested by JJP.
The Ajay Chautala-led JJP, which broke away from Om Prakash Chautala-led INLD, was in alliance with AAP during the Lok Sabha elections. BSP had an electoral pact with INLD but none of these parties could open their account in the Lok Sabha polls, where the ruling BJP won all the ten seats.
The announcement of the new alliance was made at a joint press conference by JJP leader Dushyant Chautala and BSP general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra. The Assembly elections is expected to take place in October, in which the M L Khattar-led BJP expects to retain power while Opposition parties INLD, Congress, AAP and JJP-BSP hope to dethrone the saffron party.
Dushyant said the decision on the alliance came after several meetings of top leaders of both the parties. Mishra said Mayawati has given the green signal for the alliance and it will create a new history in the state.
The JJP was formed recently after senior Chautala's two sons Ajay and Abhay differed over the way the INLD was run. Ajay broke away from the INLD and formed his own party with his sons Dushyant, then an MP, and Digvijay.
At present, BJP has 47 MLAs in the Assembly while Congress has 16. In the 2014 elections, BJP trounced Congress, pushing the latter to the third position. INLD had won 19 seats in 2014 but at present, it has only eight as 11 MLAs quit the post. Fifteen of the 90 seats in the Assembly are vacant now.