Haryana Janhit Congress chief Kuldeep Bishnoi will not be the chief ministerial candidate if the BJP-HJC alliance comes to power in the state, a senior leader of the saffron party today said.
Alluding to the ally's poor performance in Lok Sabha elections, senior BJP leader from Haryana and party MLA, Anil Vij also said that there was no way it could give 45 seats to contest to its ally.
"Keeping in view the changed scenario after HJC's poor performance in the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP cannot offer him the CM's post nor can we give 45 seats to HJC to contest," Vij said in Ambala.
"Despite the fact that we have made the situation clear to Bishnoi, he has remained adamant on old terms and conditions. We do not want that the alliance should break, but at the same time we cannot move forward on old terms and conditions because of HJC's poor performance in the LS polls, in which Bishnoi lost from his home turf Hisar while another of his candidate was also defeated (from Sirsa)," Vij said.
Notably, Bishnoi this week had shot off a letter to BJP chief Amit Shah, in which he asserted that his party was firm on not negotiating on the original terms and conditions of the partnership and had hit out at the state saffron leaders for publicly airing their views against the tie-up.
Bishnoi, the younger son of late former Chief Minister Bhajan Lal, had stated in his letter that HJC was not in favour of re-working the terms and conditions of the alliance.
He had mentioned that the HJC-BJP alliance was entered in 2011 for Lok Sabha and for the state Assembly elections.
"In the LS polls, the BJP was to contest eight seats and HJC was to fight two seats. In the state assembly, both parties would contest 45 seats each and Bishnoi, leader of the alliance and HJC chief, would be chief minister for the two-and-a-half years and BJP nominee for the remaining period," Bishnoi had mentioned in the letter.
Cracks had surfaced in the BJP-HJC alliance in Haryana after the Lok Sabha polls, with demands from certain sections in BJP's state unit to either rework the tie-up or go alone in the Assembly elections.
Meanwhile, Vij while commenting on the possibility of senior Congress leader Birender Singh joining the BJP ahead of the October assembly polls, said "when he joins he will get due respect in the party.
