Amid defection buzz, JJP issues unique whip, for its MLAs to skip trust vote, 5 ignore it

A day after the BJP severed ties with it and replaced Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar with Nayab Singh Saini, the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) issued a whip to its MLAs directing them to remain “absent” from the trust voting session underway in the Haryana Vidhan Sabha on Wednesday when Saini will prove his majority in the House.

Ignoring the whip, five of the nine JJP MLAs — Devender Babli (Tohana), Ram Kumar Gautam (Narnaund), Ishwar Singh and Jogiram Sihag (Barwala), Ishwar Singh (Guhla) and Ram Niwas Surjakhera (Narwana) — reached the Vidhan Sabha Wednesday morning to participate in the vote of confidence session, and fuelled speculations of joining the BJP.

Surjakhera is learnt to have asked the other four MLAs who turned up to attend a meeting outside the House that was called by a few Independent MLAs who announced their support to the BJP.

The whip issued by the JJP read: “All JJP Members of the Haryana Legislative Assembly are hereby informed that this Confidence Motion in the Council of Ministers proposed by Government will be brought in the Haryana Legislative Assembly on Wednesday, the 13 March, 2024. All members of JJP in the Haryana Legislative Assembly, are, therefore, requested to remain absent positively from the House at the time of Voting on Confidence Motion on Wednesday, the 13 March, 2024”.

JJP insiders told The Indian Express that the whip was issued because at least five JJP MLAs did not attend the party’s meeting called by former Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala in New Delhi on Tuesday. The MLAs are learnt to have gone to the Haryana Raj Bhavan instead to attend the swearing-in ceremony of the new BJP ministers. The sources said that the whip had been issued “to avoid giving an impression