BSP severs ties with HJC

BSP severs ties with HJC
Bijendra Ahlawat
Tribune News Service

Rohtak, September 3
The much-touted alliance of the BSP and the HJC led by Kuldeep Bishnoi was formally broken by national general secretary of the BSP and in charge of party affairs in Haryana Man Singh Manhera here today.

The two parties, which had been facing discontentment for the past few days, had joined hands on June 18. The BSP has declared to go it alone in the Assembly elections scheduled to be held on October 13.

This is the second political alliance that has failed to take off even before the elections as the BJP had broken its pact with the INLD a couple of weeks ago.

Seen as a shot in the arm for the ruling Congress, the breakup of the HJC-BSP alliance was announced by Manhera at a press conference here today.

Blaming the HJC leaders for the breakup, Manhera alleged that HJC supremo Kuldeep Bishnoi was interested more in sharing of tickets with the BJP than the BSP, though an agreement had reached to share the 90 seats in the ratio of 50:40.

He claimed that the HJC leader had been pressurising the party to allocate at least 30 seats to the BJP in the elections. Alleging that the BJP is a communal party and it is against the ideals and principles of the BSP to go along with such an organisation, he said BSP supremo Mayawati had given a nod to break the alliance with the HJC.

Moreover, HJC leaders had not been taking any interest in the alliance activities and keeping away from the meetings held in the recent past, he added. He said the BSP would not enter into any alliance and contest the elections independently.

He declared that the BSP would hold a state-level election rally in Jind on September 20, which would be addressed by Mayawati.

However, it may be recalled that there had been alleged discontentment among the party cadre of both the BSP and the HJC over the seat sharing after it was announced that 50 seats would go to the HJC while the rest would be given to the BSP. This announcement had led to resentment among the party leaders and workers from both the sides as it was alleged that the distribution had not been done properly and could result in a loss.

The BSP and the HJC had a 15.73 and 9.87 per cent vote share, respectively, in the last Lok Sabha elections in the state.