Kuldeep Bishnoi's Haryana Janhit Congress snaps ties with BJP; to join hands with Venod Sharma

Ahead of the Assembly elections in the state, Kuldeep Bishnoi-led Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC-BL) today decided to snap its ties with BJP, putting an end to the prolonged tussle between the two parties which had been in an alliance for three years.

Announcing the decision to break away from the alliance with BJP here, HJC chief Kuldeep Bishnoi said the saffron outfit had betrayed his party. He said that his party would forge an alliance with former Congress leader Venod Sharma's Jan Chetna Party (JCP) before the state polls, likely to be held in October. "We tried our level best to keep the alliance working... made sincere efforts...They (BJP) are not ready to stick to agreed alliance principles," Bishnoi, younger son of late chief minister Bhajan Lal, told a press conference here. "Betrayal is in the nature of BJP," Bishnoi reiterated. Addressing a rally in Bhiwani district yesterday, he had said that he served and cooperated with BJP from the "core of my heart for the last three years", but at the end "we were betrayed".

Leaders of BJP, which is eyeing to wrest power from Congress in the state, have said that the party is in position to contest all the 90 seats on its own and accused Bishnoi of trying to "break the ties".

Rift between BJP and its alliance partner HJC surfaced soon after the Lok Sabha polls, as the Bishnoi-led outfit failed to win any of the two seats it had contested while BJP bagged seven constituencies. The ties between the parties also deteriorated due to differences over seat-sharing for the Assembly polls, with Bishnoi seeking 45 of the 90 seats and demanding that he be declared the chief ministerial candidate of the alliance, both of which the BJP has opposed.