Good And Bad Of Khattar's Legacy And The BJP-JJP Split

Here are the four key highlights from Diksha Yadav's podcast What This Means with Rohit Pathania, focusing on the latest political developments in Haryana. (To listen, click here for Spotify, and here Swarajya App).

1. Why was CM Manohar Lal Khattar asked to resign?

Manohan Lal Khattar was certainly not winning any popularity contests, despite his efforts to the maximum in the last year. One of the things that was going against him definitely was the sort of allegation of policy paralysis within the government.

Even basic tasks such as conducting tender processes for panchayats turned into a nightmare due to the various panchayat heads being at loggerheads with their respective political parties and the central government. This led to an increase in the minimum amount for tendering. Although this initiative aimed to eradicate corruption at the grassroots level, it ultimately backfired.

Furthermore, this whole idea that the government was probably working at the behest of sahukars, seths, etc., — the popular narrative that comes with a lot of leftist ideology or even socialist belief within Haryana — it still carries some traction, especially within the agricultural communities. There is this effort by the government to seem as if it has nothing to do with any of them.

The fact remains that the government has not necessarily attracted a lot of large-scale investments in recent years, or created more jobs than what was being necessarily done within government circles.

2. BJP-JJP Alliance split was anticipated

The fact that the BJP-JJP Alliance was on tenterhooks for a while was more than evident.

If you remember, we had filed a story more than a year ago in which it was highlighted how the BJP was scouting for faces from within the Jat community, particularly. At that time, there was a lot of rumour of Kiran Chaudhary, the daughter-in-law of Bansi Lal, joining in, but eventually that move didn't materialise.

She was coming in from the Congress because her own base had probably diminished quite a bit, but it was becoming increasingly evident that there was a lack of confidence within the alliance between BJP and JJP.

Moreover, Dushyant Chautala was also probably not happy with the fact that the BJP was not willing to concede more than one seat in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

In fact, all leaders of the BJP had been continuously hoping on contesting all 10 seats of Haryana at the Lok Sabha level. And it is actually Dushyant who probably lost the most in the alliance. He fought the 2019 assembly election on anti-BJP plank and the BJP itself was seen by the larger Jat vote base at that time as being an anti-Jat party. In fact, that was the key calling card for Dushyant's Jannayak Janata Party, but an alliance with the BJP certainly did not win the JJP any talking points.

So a lot has been going on, but generally there has been a sense of unpopularity that has been developing around the BJP-JJP combined government, and the alliance probably was not achieving any meaningful results. 

To add to that, there is Bhupinder Singh Hooda who is making all efforts to ensure that Congress is in a very strong position when it contests the Lok Sabha and the Vidhan Sabha that are due subsequently this year.

We see that the Congress has been on a kind of resurgence despite there being dissatisfaction among many senior leaders because it has really managed to come under one umbrella in a way, and that has brought in a sense of confidence within the party that it can actually fare much better than anticipated in Haryana's assembly elections.

Though of course, Lok Sabha might certainly vote a certain way that everybody is anticipating already, Vidhan Sabha would definitely be game on from the Congress perspective.

3. Khattar's Legacy: Achievements and Failures

The biggest failure for the Khattar government would definitely be infrastructure development. Haryana's roadways have been generating a lot of complaints in recent years, and nothing much concrete has happened on it despite a lot of assurances.

Also, the inability to bring in big ticket investments is something that a lot of people have been criticising this government for. The alliance, too, was not very helpful.

In terms of positives, I would say that one of the biggest achievements of Manohar Lal Khattar as Chief Minister was the fact that the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao initiative was successful in Haryana. And the fact that the sex ratio in the state improved massively under his leadership with constant effort on implementing the central government scheme.

Even from the perspective of other central government schemes, coverage levels have been very high thanks to the dedicated efforts of his government.

I think one of the other big achievements of Mr Khattar is that he has been able to run a clean government. There have been no major scams that are associated with his government, even though one could say that no action means no corruption. 

But, given the kind of allegations and back and forth that used to happen with Hooda government during his 10 year tenure, it was a big achievement in a way that there was, for a change, a government that at least did not face any allegations of corruption or there was never a perception about it. 

A third thing would be the fact that despite what happened in 2016–17, especially with the Jat reservation agitations, generally, the state has not seen major flare-ups amongst communities, which used to be very common prior to Khattar's tenure.

Also, the kind of social stability that has come in Haryana under his government. I think kudos to Mr Khattar and his government for ensuring that there was no reason to complain at least, apart from probably political representation.

4. JJP, the biggest loser?

Frankly, the biggest loser of all that's been going on in the last two or three days is the JJP. It is more than evident that there will be quite a bit of vote splitting that will happen. There would be more than one party vying for the precious Jat vote of Haryana, which is the single largest community in the state. One thing, of course, is that Dushyant Chautala has not been very popular despite being the deputy chief minister in the state.

Even with the 10 seats that he (Dushyant and his party JJP) has this time, I would be surprised if he manages to hold on to 50 per cent of them, should the next election come.

And since the BJP and the Congress will also contest on all 10 Lok Sabha seats, neither party is willing to accommodate them or even INLD, the parent party of Om Prakash Chautala, from which the JJP broke away. So let's see how it works out. I don't see either INLD or JJP making any gains anytime soon.

The state has become fairly bipolar now. And except for a few independents, I don't see any scope for third parties.

P.S. Rohit Pathania also talks about the two-three seats of the 10 seats in Haryana that can be challenging for the BJP in the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Listen to the full episode here:🎙️ 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝘆𝗮𝗻𝗮—𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗝𝗣-𝗝𝗝𝗣 𝗦𝗽𝗹𝗶𝘁, 𝗖𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘁 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗵𝘂𝗳𝗳𝗹𝗲, 𝗞𝗵𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗮𝗿'𝘀 𝗟𝗲𝗴𝗮𝗰𝘆.