The master of Aaya Ram Gaya Ram (party-hopping) culture in Haryana, Bhajan Lal, was defeated at his own game by chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda as five Haryana Janhit Congress MLAs joined the Congress, leaving Bhajan Lal’s son, Kuldeep Bishnoi, alone.
Four HJC MLAs had jumped the bandwagon on Monday and the fifth one followed suit on Tuesday, giving the Congress a total strength of 45 MLAs in the House of 89.
It is learnt that ever since the Hooda government came to power, HJC MLAs were
pressing Bhajan Lal and Bishnoi to merge with the Congress, but the duo kept dithering for apparent reasons. With five of the party’s six MLAs crossing over to the Congress, Bhajan Lal and his son have been practically isolated in the state politics.
Hooda reportedly worked hard in the last three weeks to woo the HJC MLAs, sans Kuldeep Bishnoi, even delaying cabinet formation in the process. He had earlier formed the government with the support of seven Independents.
But with the HJC MLAs joining him, his dependence on Independents will not be as critical. The five HJC MLAs are Narender Singh from Narnaul, Satpal Sangwan from Dadri, Venod Bhyana from Hansi and Zile Ram Chochra from Assandh and Dharam Singh from Samalkha.
They personally appeared before speaker HS Chatha to request him to approve their merger with the Congress. Chatha granted them their request. The speaker said he was allowing the merger after confirming that the HJC MLAs had decided to merge with the
Congress out of their free will, and receiving confirmation from Congress legislature party leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Haryana Congress president Phool Chand Mullana that the party had accepted the proposal.
After the merger, Mullana said all five MLAs reposed their faith in the policies of the Congress. Dharam Singh had in fact sent a fax to the Haryana speaker on Monday night stating that he too endorsed the decision of his four colleagues to merge with the Congress.
