Barely 10 days after the announcement of seat-sharing in Haryana which is due for Assembly polls, the BSP on Thursday snapped its ties with the former chief minister Bhajan Lal’s Haryana Janhit Congress Party (HJCP). They alleged HJCP was in touch with BJP for striking a deal.

Sources said the BSP would go it alone in Haryana. Party chief Mayawati is said to have communicated her decision to the BSP’s Haryana unit.

Man Singh Manhera, in-charge of the BSP unit in Haryana, confirmed his party’s decision to break its alliance with the HJCP but gave no reasons. “The alliance has been called off, and the BSP will contest 90 Assembly seats on its own,” he said.

On June 18, the Chief Minister Mayawati had announced her party’s decision to enter into an alliance with the HJCP in the presence of Bhajan Lal at her official residence in Lucknow. Both the parties had also finalised the seat-sharing arrangement. 

While the BSP got 40, the HJCP was to field its candidates on the remaining 50 seats. Both the parties also agreed to project Bhajan Lal’s son Kuldeep Bishnoi as the chief ministerial candidate.

A BSP source said his party had joined hands with the HJCP, hoping for a consolidation of the non-Jat votes. Now, after the BJP’s decision to part ways with the INLD, the state is going to have multi-cornered contest which suited the BSP, a senior leader said.

As scheduled, meanwhile,Mayawati will address an election rally in Jind on September 20. Earlier, it was to be addressed jointly by her and Bhajan Lal. The BSP candidates had done well in several Lok Sabha constituencies in the last elections. The party had secured about 1.93 lakh votes in Gurgaon, about 1.90 lakh votes in Ambala, about 1.13 lakh in Faridabad and about 1.51 lakh votes in Kurukshetra, besides 2.28 lakh votes in Karnal.

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