For political parties in Haryana, the hour of reckoning is here. Old friends have become foes and vice versa. The INLD, the BJP, the Congress and the HVP have created new alliances, baffling the voters. Will these partnerships get full backing of the people and lead to the formation of a stable government? Gobind Thukral analyses the ground situation.

ASSEMBLY elections in Haryana slated for February 22 have thrown up new political equations. On the shifting quicksand of politics, friends have turned foes and foes are now bosom pals. During the 1996 Assembly elections, Bansi Lal of the Haryana Vikas Party was leading a crusade against both the Congress and the then Samata Party of Om Parkash Chautala. The BJP, which was then sitting pretty in the company of Bansi Lal, had labelled Chautala as the worst enemy of the people. It had also held him responsible for the criminalisation of Haryana's polity. Remember Meham, the gory incidents? Think twice, it had told the people, before you vote for Chautala's party. But now the BJP and Chautala's Indian National Lok Dal are together in their fight against both the Congress and the Haryana Vikas Party.

Bansi Lal is now going around accusing the BJP leaders, particularly Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and state leader Ram Bilas Sharma, of the worst kind of treachery. He has once again discovered streaks of communalism in the BJP and paints it as an enemy of the nation. However, he still regards some leaders ( like Union Home Minister Lal Krishan Advani) as honourable men but whose writ, unfortunately, does not run in the BJP's decision- making process. "It is a party of rank opportunists and can go to any length to befriend and ditch anyone", he tells the people.

The Congress, which had suffered the worst humiliation during the last Lok Sabha poll a few months back, has no one to blame except itself. It had committed harakiri. In June 1999, when the BJPdeserted Bansi Lal the Congress had extended support and this had lead to the survival of a tottering government. It had then reasoned that it was doing so to keep out communal and casteist forces --- the BJP and the INLD. But within a

month, it revised its options as then an ailing Bansi Lal could not accept the terms dictated by Congress president Sonia Gandhi. She wanted that either the Congress, with just a dozen-odd members in a House of 90, should lead the government or the Assembly should be dissolved. Both the options were unacceptable to Bansi Lal. The party withdrew support and brought the same communal and casteist parties to power.

The Lok Sabha elections which followed showed the Congress its place. Power-seeking has its limits, but not for the Congress. Now Bansi Lal, baptised in the Congress which he was made to leave some ten years ago, is attacking the party of "political opportunists". The Congress is returning the compliment.

New combinations are trying their luck in these elections. The INLD and the BJP are at one end of the spectrum and the Congress is at the other extreme. In between is the Haryana Vikas Party trying to prove that it is still a force to reckon with.The Akalis, the BSP, the Left parties, Sharad Pawar's Congress Party and a host of smaller groupings have taken out their flags to mark their presence. The Akali Dal of Parkash Singh Badal is supporting Chautala. The other Akali faction, which perhaps has more say with the Sikhs in Haryana, is led by former SGPC president Gurcharan Singh Tohra. He is trying to queer the pitch for Chautala and the BJP. It would try to help the HVP.

While thesliticians continue to practise what they know best --- the politics of naked opportunism (with small exceptions here and there) — the people suffer. Corruption is rampant and the agrarian crisis, in which the farmers suffer the worst terms of trade, is deepening. Was this season's crash of paddy prices anyone's concern ? Did Devi Lal, the custodian of farmers’ interest, speak out ? Farmers are in deep debt, to the tune of some Rs 4,000 crore. Both cooperative and the traditional moneylender, the arthiya, strike hard. The country can forget the Rs 58,000 crore that the big sharks in the industry have merrily pocketed, but defaulting farmers are chased by the police and locked up in jails. This British practice is practised with zeal till date.

Most marginal and middle level farmers cannot afford to pay for power consumed by them. Once the rate is hiked, as inevitably it would be, they would run into arrears. Chautala has learnt he can no longer offer free power and water to the farmers and, as such, it finds no mention in his manifesto. However, only a few months back it was the corner-stone of his politics and a part of the wooing game.

But what have the parties to offer by way of solutions to the deteriorating condition of the farmers. The Green Revolution is over. The land size is dwindling as the population pressure builds up. Like corruption, unemployment is rampant. The government has no jobs to offer. Its revenue is being eaten away by a burgeoning salary and pension bill. And the economic crisis is being fuelled by opportunistic politics bereft of any ideological moorings. The attendant social crisis stares us in the face.

It was as clear as daylight on June 22 last year when the 11-member BJP group withdrew support to the Bansi Lal government that Assembly elections would be the only alternative. Bansi Lal fell and Chautala came to power. Soon, there were developments which forced Chautala to seek a fresh mandate. In fact, it looked as if the BJP, and not Chautala, had scripted the whole scenario. Otherwise, there is no explanation as to why it withdrew support and then despite the efforts of Chautala it did not join the government. In fact, the Haryana BJP MLAs were eager to be part of the government.

Earlier, the only explanation that came from Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee when the BJP parted company with the HVP was that the government had become corrupt and his party could not continue to support it. This truth had suddenly dawned on the BJP after enjoying power for 37 long months. Moreover, it also did not stop the BJP from joining hands with Chautala whom it had accused in its 1996 manifesto of being party to the criminalisation of politics. But it paid dividends. The INLD- BJP combine swept the Lok Sabha poll, winning all the 10 seats.

After the Congress withdrew support, Bansi Lal could hardly survive. The next few weeks witnessed horse-trading and the new government that was formed under Chautala had to deal with an ambitious lot of MLAs. Chautala was the least attracted to the defectors from the Haryana Vikas Party and, perhaps, taught them a lesson by denying them nominations for the current poll. Whether this stems the tide of Aya Rams and Gaya Rams for which the state has become notorious, is anyone's guess.

What finally led to an early election is the fact that Chautala, at one level, assessed that he along with the BJP could sweep the polls once again, and, at another, felt that with each passing day he was becoming more and more vulnerable.

The INLD and the BJP had protracted talks on seat sharing. They finally settled at the BJP getting 29 seats and the INLD, 61. The war of attrition has left its own bitter taste. Chautala, who had no other choice than to bargain with the BJP, is keen to avoid dependence on the BJP for his survival if he forms the next government. The BJP, on its part, is equally determined to keep Chautala on a tight leash. The Vajpayee factor and the BJP ruling at the Centre were the two arguments advanced by the party while negotiating its share of seats. But Chautala strongly reiterated that his party was well grounded and could go it alone if it was left with no other choice.

But the two parties have rebels galore. At least six major rebels are struggling hard to upstage the party nominees. The Congress, on its part, is trying hard to present a unified image. But how united the party is, is well known. State Congress party president Bhupinder Singh Hooda, with an eye on the chief ministership, bargained hard to claim as many seats as possible. Ditto for Bhajan Lal. Other leaders like Birender Singh, Shamsher Singh Surjewala and Chiranji Lal Sharma, too, played their cards. Sharma got tickets for two of his wards.

The hapless electorate has little choice, though there are at least 976 candidates to choose from for the 90 seats. Number-wise it is not a bad choice. But then as parties, programmes and candidates go, the choices are rather limited. Moreover, if local issues dominate, as the case seems now, an uncertain political scenario may unfold. But if issues dominate voting trends, a stable government may emerge. The latter, given the nature of Haryana politics, looks a bit difficult.

Political clans

POLITICS is big business in this country. But politicians have turned it into a family practice in Haryana. As they say, it is all in the blood. Devi Lal was once the harshest critic of Indira Gandhi as she was the daughter of a former Prime Minister. His voice against her during the sixties and the seventies was the loudest. The patriarch then ended up rearing a neat clan of politicians. His son Om Parkash Chautala, whom he tried to keep out in 1977, is now the Chief Minister and leads his Indian National Lok Dal. One can say that by displaying sheer guts, Chautala has succeeded in sidelining his two other brothers, Partap Singh and Ranjit Singh. Instead, he has projected his two sons, Abhaya Singh Chautala and Ajay Singh Chautala as heir apparents. Ranjit Singh is in the Congress and seeking election from Rohri and Partap Singh, nursing a grudge, is always ready to blast Chautala.

Furthermore, one political caste is getting into wedlock with another political clan and thus forming a neat nexus. ‘‘But what is wrong with this? If a doctor’s son can become a doctor and marry a doctor, politicians can do the same. The people also force us to do it’’, explains Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. He too was a harsh critic of this kind of clan politics. He now has his son, son- in- law, nephew and other family members in politics.

Devi Lal is not the only one who has grafted his offsprings into politics. Bansi Lal is another. His son, Surender Singh, is with him in the HVPand was an MP fromBhiwani. He is now contesting from Tosham, the seat held for years by Bansi Lal. Interestingly, Surender Singh’s wife, Kiran Chaudhry, is in the Congress and is currently the Deputy Speaker of Delhi Assembly. Ranbir Singh Mahendra, the eldest son of Bansi Lal, is in the Congress. Som Vir Singh, his son- in-law, is contesting from Loharu.

Former Chief Minister Bhajan Lal is not far behind. He nominated Jasma Devi, his wife, to represent Adampur when he was elected to Parliament. Later, his son Kuldip Bishnoi held the seat. Bhajan Lal is contesting again from there. His second son Chander Mohan is a Congress candidate from Kalka.

But it does not end with the three Lals. INLD’s Surinder Singh Barwala’s wife is contesting from Barwala. Shamsher Singh Surjewala’s son Randip Singh Surjewala is fighting for a second term from Narwana and faces Chautala. Other political siblings are Rao Inderjit Singh, Rao Narinder Singh, Renu Poswal etc.

The Congress and the INLD have a whole lot of family members contesting from several seats like Bahadurgarh and Dabwali. Indeed, one has to be related to some ‘‘Chaudhry Sahib’’ or the other in order to do something in Haryana’s semi- feudal political arena.

— G.T.