Chandigarh: Haryana Deputy Chief Minister and Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) leader Dushyant Chautala cited the cost of holding two elections within a few months and the “strain” on manpower as he reiterated his support for simultaneous parliamentary and assembly polls. Next year, in conversation with ThePrint.
While general elections in the country are due in May next year, Haryana is scheduled to vote for the assembly by October 2024.
“We have always been in favor of holding simultaneous parliamentary and assembly elections in Haryana as they are due within a gap of five to six months. Government has to bear double the cost of holding [the two] The election and the entire official machinery will also have to be busy for more than six months, Chautala told ThePrint.
Asked whether he has spoken to Haryana Chief Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Manohar Lal Khattar about this, Chautala said he could not comment on the views of the BJP leadership on the issue, but the JJP It was agreed to hold simultaneous elections with ,
JJP and BJP are part of the ruling coalition in Haryana.
“Even when the Election Commission of India [ECI] Chautala said that during his visit to Haryana last year, JJP had given his view that the party wanted parliamentary and assembly elections to be held simultaneously.
Speaking to ThePrint, Parveen Jora, a member of the BJP’s state executive, said the decision to hold parliamentary and assembly elections together or separately is for the BJP’s central leadership.
Addressing a public meeting at Gehli village in Mahendragarh on Sunday, Chautala supported holding simultaneous elections in the state in the coming year and said his party was fully prepared to face the 2024 assembly and Lok Sabha polls.
“Our organization has completed all the preparations and we are ready to face the elections. Our active workers are preparing for elections in every assembly and parliamentary seat. We have fulfilled most of our poll promises and we are making efforts to increase the pension amount of old people,” the Haryana deputy CM had said.
Simultaneous elections have not been held in the state for at least more than two decades. Haryana had held separate general and assembly elections in the years 2009, 2014 and 2019 at an interval of five to six months.
According to Haryana-based political analyst Yogendra Gupta, “Parliamentary elections are fought on national issues. During the last two or three elections, the Lok Sabha elections have been fought on very strong national sentiments. In such a situation, there is very little chance left for the regional parties to contest the elections.
Gupta said: “If they [regional parties] On failing to win any parliamentary seat, the party workers become highly demoralized and it becomes very difficult for the party workers to campaign enthusiastically for the assembly elections within six months of the parliamentary elections.
Read also: BJP in election mode in Haryana: Amit Shah’s rally, campaign to capture Chautala’s strongholds
win and lose
In the 2019 parliamentary elections, Chautala contested from Hisar against BJP’s Brijendra Singh and Congress’s Kuldeep Bishnoi, while his younger brother Digvijay Chautala contested from Sonipat against BJP’s Ramesh Kaushik and Congress’s Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
However, the JJP lost all the 10 seats it contested.
In the assembly elections held in October that year, the JJP managed to win 10 seats, with Chautala himself defeating Prem Lata, a senior BJP leader and wife of former Union minister Birender Singh, from the Uchana Kalan seat.
However the results were still well below the party’s expectations.
In the 2014 assembly elections, the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) won 31 seats in the 90-member assembly, but in 2019, the INLD could win only 1, while the JJP (a breakaway party from INLD) won 10 seats.
The JJP forged an alliance with the BJP after the 2019 assembly elections and Chautala became the deputy CM in the Khattar-led government.
In the parliamentary elections held in May 2014, the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) led by Kuldeep Bishnoi entered into an alliance with the BJP.
While the BJP registered landslide victories across the country and the saffron party won eight of the eight seats it contested in Haryana, the HJC contested both the seats, with Bishnoi himself losing from Hisar.
The BJP broke the alliance with Bishnoi’s party ahead of the 2014 assembly elections and a highly disappointing HJC won only two seats – while Bishnoi himself won from Adampur, his wife Renuka Bishnoi won from Hansi.
In the 2009 elections, the Om Prakash Chautala-led INLD, which had been out of power for five years, lost all 10 seats it contested in the parliamentary elections.
In the assembly elections held in October that year, however, it won 32 seats, while the Bhupinder Singh-led Congress won 40 – the maximum by any party.
A senior INLD leader told ThePrint that Om Prakash Chautala often said that if he had known that the party would come so close to the ruling party’s figure in 2009, he would have used more resources in the elections. According to the INLD leader, the party’s dismal performance in the parliamentary elections had demoralized the party to such an extent that the leadership took the assembly elections somewhat lightly.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)