Boost for BJP in Haryana? JJP rebels Surjakhera, Sihag set to join the party ahead of assembly polls

In another jolt to former Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala, JJP rebel MLAs Ramniwas Surjakhera and Jogi Ram Sihag have resigned from the state assembly and will join the BJP in the coming days, news agency PTI reported on Thursday. This may come as a boost for the BJP in poll-bound Haryana.  

Surjakhera and Sihag, MLAs from Narwana and Barwala respectively, sent their resignation letters to the Haryana Assembly Speaker Gian Chand Gupta. The JJP MLAs had openly supported the BJP in the recently held Lok Sabha elections. 

This comes just a week after rebel MLAs Anoop Dhanak, Ram Karan Kala, Devender Babli and Ishwar Singh resigned from the party citing personal reasons. Kala, MLA from Shahabad, joined the Congress on Wednesday in the presence of former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. 

Including Surjakhera and Sihag, six out of the 10 JJP MLAs have quit the party so far. Surjakhera had campaigned in Narwana while Sihag in Hisar for the BJP despite the JJP having fielded its candidates on all the 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana. 

The JJP had in May moved a petition before the Haryana Assembly Speaker seeking disqualification of Surjakhera and Sihag under the anti-defection law for allegedly indulging in anti-party activities. 

The JJP suffered a crushing defeat in the Lok Sabha polls. "I have resigned from the primary membership of the party as well as a Vidhan Sabha member," Surjakhera told PTI. 

Sihag, Surjakhera, Ram Kumar Gautam and Anoop Dhanak extended support to BJP's Kiran Choudhry after she filed her nomination for the Rajya Sabha bypoll from Haryana. 

Surjakhera claimed that he and the three other legislators will be joining the BJP in the next few days. Hitting out at Dushyant Chautala, he said, "The JJP is being run like a family-based party where the voice of MLAs is not being heard. On many occasions in the past, many decisions were taken unilaterally and we were not consulted." 

After vertical split in the INLD owing to family feud, Ajay Singh Chautala and Dushyant Chautala had formed the JJP in December 2018. Having won 10 of the 90 seats in the 2019 Assembly elections, the JJP forged a post-poll alliance with the BJP after the saffron party failed to secure a majority on its own. 

However, in March 2024, after Nayab Singh Saini replaced M L Khattar as the chief minister, the BJP's four-and-a-half-year-old alliance with the JJP ended.

Haryana will go to polls on October 1.

(With inputs from PTI)