Abhay Chautala says no clouds hanging over INLD-BSP alliance
INLD leader Abhay Singh Chautala rejected reports that his party's alliance with the BSP was under strain after the drubbing it received in the Jind bypoll, asserting that the two parties will jointly contest the coming polls. "Has anyone said that the INLD-BSP alliance ended? Our alliance stands. We entered into an alliance (last year) to fight (the upcoming) Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha polls together and we will jointly contest these polls," he said. "If there are any issues, we will sit together and discuss them," he said at a press conference after his party's executive committee meeting, which was chaired by Indian National Lok Dal's state unit chief Ashok Arora here. Abhay Chautala, the younger son of INLD president and former chief minister Om Prakash Chautala, said that "a section of media is trying to portray as if our alliance has broken. Has any BSP leader given a statement that this alliance has ended?" "(Bahujan Samaj Party supremo) Mayawati has said that the INLD, which has split, should unite which will strengthen the alliance. After the Jind bypoll, I spoke to her," he said. Asked what transpired between the two leaders, he said, "all things cannot be made public". The INLD failed to hold on to the Jind seat, which was represented by its senior leader Hari Chand Middha, whose death in August last year had necessitated the bypoll. Middha's son Krishan Middha, a BJP candidate, registered an emphatic win. But Abhay Chautala's nephew Digvijay Chautala of the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) finished at number two spot. The INLD's Umed Singh Redhu lost his security deposit and finished a poor fifth. The JJP was floated in December last year after feud in the Chautala family. Ajay Singh Chautala is patron of the JJP while his two sons -- Digvijay and Dushyant Chautala -- are spearheading the party in the absence of Ajay Chautala, who is serving a jail term in connection with the teachers recruitment scam in Haryana. At the humiliating defeat of INLD candidate Umed Singh Redhu in the Jind bypoll, Abhay Chautala said the Election Commission should order a probe into the alleged misuse of money power. "Otherwise how is it possible that on 60 booths, INLD gets only one, two or three votes. It is unthinkable that our party, which has at least 20-30 active workers on every booth, can get such less votes," he said. "When such results come, then the only option is to approach the Election Commission and we will request the EC that an independent probe of this byelection be held," he said. Abhay Chautala said his party will raise this issue in the state assembly as well. "We will come out with proof how money power has been used in these polls," he added. Hitting out at his estranged elder brother Ajay Chautala, he said, "Some people hatched conspiracy to weaken our party. To make his son Dushyant Chautala MP (from Hisar), Ajay Singh Chautala conspired against his own party." "Ajay Chautala shook hands with many of our opponents who belonged to different parties. He entered into a quid pro quo arrangement with them by extending help to them in the 2014 Vidhan Sabha polls in return of the favour they extended to him to help Dushyant Chautala in the Lok Sabha polls same year," he alleged. He dubbed the Centre's announcement of income support of Rs 6,000 to farmers per year as a "cruel joke". "We passed a resolution in our meeting that farmers will be given Rs 17 per day by the government, which takes no time to settle hundreds of crores of rupees loans of big industrialists. We demand that the farmers having up to five acres of land should be given support of atleast Rs 21,000 per year," he said. PTI
