After poor show, JJP dissolves party units ahead of Assembly elections

Pradeep Sharma

Chandigarh, June 13

After its worst-ever performance in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, the JJP has dissolved all its units in an attempt to rebuild the party in the run-up to the upcoming October Assembly elections in Haryana.

Will work with more energy

The new-look party organisation will work with more energy to face the challenges arising out of the Lok Sabha defeat and perform better in the state Assembly polls. — Ajay Chautala, JJP Founder-president

Sources said the party was in the process of reorganising its various units to put its best foot forward in the 2024 Assembly elections. “The party organisation would be made more broad-based and representative to cash in on the anti-incumbency against the Nayab Singh Saini-led BJP government,” sources said.

A senior party leader said there still existed a political vacuum in the state which only a non-BJP and the non-Congress party could fill. “The JJP is in perfect position to fill that vacuum in the next Assembly elections to fulfil regional aspirations of the people,” the leader asserted.

Ajay Chautala, JJP’s founder-president, said the new-look party organisation would work with more energy to face the challenges arising out of the Lok Sabha defeat and perform better in the state Assembly polls.

Formed out of a family rift in the clan of former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala in December 2018, the JJP has been at loggerheads with its parent party INLD to emerge as the true inheritor of the legacy of former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal.

In the aftermath of the 2019 Assembly elections, the JJP emerged as a kingmaker bagging 10 seats and securing 14.8% votes. As the Haryana voters threw up a hung Assembly with the largest party BJP getting 40 seats in the 90-member House, the JJP stitched together an alliance with the saffron party. The alliance, with JJP leader Dushyant Chautala as Deputy Chief Minister, continued till March 2024 before it ended on the issue of seat-sharing for the Lok Sabha polls.

After the alliance ended, several senior leaders left the party and five of its MLAs displayed rebellious postures. To add insult to the injury, the party clocked its worst-ever performance in the recent Lok Sabha elections, securing a mere 0.87 per cent votes. None of its 10 candidates was able to save his security deposits.

JJP’s dismal performance in the parliamentary elections was primarily blamed on its key vote bank farmers, especially the Jats, who rallied behind the Congress.