Once BJP’s ‘saviour’, now ‘liability’, where does Dushyant Chautala go from here?

Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) chief Dushyant Chautala and his nine legislators had formed a post-poll alliance with the BJP and emerged as its “saviours” in 2019 after the Haryana Assembly polls threw up a fractured mandate. Four-and-a-half years later, ditched by its ally and facing rebellion from its own ranks, Dushyant stares at a tough road ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections and the subsequent state polls.

The BJP had made Dushyant the Deputy CM as reward for supporting the BJP-JJP government, holding key portfolios like Excise and Taxation, Revenue and Disaster Management, Commerce, Food, etc. Two other JJP MLAs – Anoop Dhanak and Devender Singh Babli – were also made ministers in the Manohar Lal Khattar Cabinet.

BJP sources said the decision was taken finally to sever ties with the JJP as the chorus of workers who felt Dushyant was getting “too demanding” was growing. The last straw was the JJP chief’s demand for 2 Lok Sabha seats in the coming elections – Hisar and Bhiwani-Mahendergarh. The BJP had won all the 10 seats in the state in 2019.

Sources said the BJP also felt that Dushyant was hogging the limelight and projecting himself as a “parallel power centre”. “Dushyant’s key poll promise of providing youths of the state 75% reservation in private jobs was implemented but challenged in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which struck it down. It was the state government that also implemented another promise by him, of 50% quota for women in panchayati raj institutions. However, he began taking credit, including for developing Hisar (a seat which he had won in 2014) as a civil aviation hub. These things did not go down well with the BJP, especially ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. The alliance was called off for