CHANDIGARH—With the Haryana assembly polls headed for a nail-biting finish on Thursday, Dushyant Chautala, the grandson of Haryana’s former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala and President of the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), has emerged kingmaker in the state.
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Dushyant, a business administration graduate from California State University had parted ways with the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) in December 2018 after a bitter feud in the Chautala family. The party was was formed by Chautala’s great grand father Devi Lal.
Dushyant has not only successfully managed to take on INLD, now led by his uncle Abhay Chautala, but has also managed to shatter BJP’s ‘Is Baar 75 paar’ dreams in Haryana.
While the ongoing trends are hinting towards a cliffhanger in Haryana, Dushyant rushed to Chandigarh strike a deal. Reports suggest both the BJP and Congress have reached out to him.
HuffPost India learnt that the BJP is trying to strike a deal with the JJP through much trusted political ally and Punjab’s former Chief minister Prakash Singh Badal.
Dushyant is facing former Union Minister Birender Singh’s wife Prem Lata in Uchana Kalan Assembly seat.
The leader, basking in new-found glory, has said that he is ready for an alliance with whoever offers him the chief minister’s chair.
While interacting with media earlier on Thursday, Dushyant claimed that the JJP would win around 30 seats and will hold the power key to form government in the state.
Till 11 am today, JJP was at 11 seats and leading in another 10 seats mostly in rural areas. A major reason for the astounding success of the 10 years old party is the farmers dissent, economic slowdown and factionalism in Congress. Only a month before the polls, Congress party’s former Haryana Chief Ashok Tanwar after splitting from the party announced support to JJP.
The state which is a significant auto hub, is going through various challenges, such as unemployment, largely due to the economic slowdown.
While BJP this time has focussed on the national issues like scrapping of Article 370 in Kashmir and Hyper nationalism, Congress and JJP caught the imagination of the voters on local issues like unemployment and water crisis.