The Tribune Interview: Congress, BJP won’t get majority on own, we will be kingmaker

Pradeep Sharma and Bhartesh Singh Thakur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 16

Former Deputy Chief Minister and Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) leader Dushyant Chautala has predicted a hung House in the upcoming Assembly elections and claimed that the key to power would be with him.

We have seen people’s sentiments in the Lok Sabha polls. We faced the wrath of the farmers’ movement. It was a mistake to stay with the BJP, and we won’t make this mistake again.

“Neither the BJP nor the Congress will cross 40 seats in Haryana. ‘Chhabi aur taala dono mere pass hoga’ (I will have both the key and the lock),” he said.

During The Tribune’s video show, #DecodeHaryana, Dushyant discussed various issues, including the breakdown of the alliance with the BJP, JJP’s poor performance in the Lok Sabha elections, and how Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini is being “remote-controlled”.

On the JJP-BJP alliance falling apart after more than four and a half years, he said: “During the seat-sharing talks for the Lok Sabha elections, we asked for raising the old-age pension to Rs 5,100, which was our poll promise. We could have fought the parliamentary polls separately but would have stood by them. But they didn’t agree.”

In response to a question, he admitted, “Dhoka to hua hi hai (We were cheated). Both the BJP and the Congress aim to stop regional parties. This has happened not only in Haryana but also to the Akali Dal in Punjab. What happened to the TDP in 2018? The BJP did the same to them.”

He asserted that there would be no alliance with the BJP in the future. “We have seen people’s sentiments in the Lok Sabha polls. We faced the wrath of the farmers’ movement. It was a mistake to stay with the BJP, and we won’t make this mistake again,” he added. The JJP’s vote share was reduced to 0.87 per cent in the General Election.

Ruling out alliances with any other party for the state polls, he said the JJP was working to contest all 90 constituencies. Expressing confidence, he said, “The Assembly elections will be different. There is a saying in Haryana, ‘Badi parchi alag hai, choti alag’. ‘Badi parchi’ refers to the Lok Sabha polls, while regional sentiments will play out in the Assembly polls.”

When asked if he thought of resigning during the farmers’ movement, he said, “No one could foresee that the farmers’ agitation would last so long. We have done much for farmers, like making MSP payments within two days, providing MSP on 14 crops, and timely crop compensation. We did hundreds of things, but we couldn’t make a booklet or advertise through pamphlets.”

Predicting defections in the Congress and the BJP, he said, “In both the national parties, there are eight to nine candidates for each constituency. ‘Kisi ko Saini Saab ne lollypop de rakha hai, kisi ko Manohar Lal Ne’. ‘Kisi ko Hooda ne de rakha hai, kisi ko Selja ne’. One person will get the ticket. When tickets are announced, rebels will contest, and these parties’ vote share will dwindle.”

The former Deputy Chief Minister claimed that out of his 10 MLAs, five were with him. “The other day, I said in a press conference that we should have named our party TTP, Tau Training Party. We train people, and then they flee to national parties. It has been happening since Devi Lal’s time.”

Attacking CM Saini, he said, “A CM who couldn’t carry out a bureaucratic reshuffle of his choice, including district SPs or DCs, implies he is being remote-controlled. I strongly say and keep saying that the nod of ‘Bade Sahab’ is awaited before any decision. Don’t force me to tell who ‘Bade Sahab’ is… You can see the record; in the last 1.5 months after the Lok Sabha polls, Nayab Saini didn’t make any policy. All policies were framed in the last four and a half years of our rule. It is a case of putting a new wrapper on it and labeling it ‘Non-Stop Haryana’.

He added, “Saini Sahab must tell me what he has brought under ‘Non-Stop Haryana.’ Highways were made during our time. Tenders that were approved during our time are being inaugurated now. Instead, he had put a full stop.”

He suggested wrestler Vinesh Phogat be nominated to the Rajya Sabha like Sachin Tendulkar was in the past. “During the Assemble session, I will move a resolution in this regard.”

Attacking the Congress, he said there was match-fixing between former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda and the BJP and pointed out that had central agencies pursued matters against him, some trials, like the one in the AJL case, would have been completed.