Take the state of the political parties and their relationships. There is uncertainty over the political future of the Chautala-controlled main opposition party Indian National Lok Dal. On the other hand, fissures have started appearing in the BJP and Haryana Janhit Congress alliance. More than its unabated factionalism, the ruling Congress finds itself in the dock due to the disturbing state of law and order, especially the incidents of atrocities on Dalits and unchecked rapes.

The uncertainty over the INLD’s political future looks hard to end until its ailing supremo Om Parkash Chautala is able to resume his normal political activism. Chautala and his son and the party’s ‘B’ team leader Ajay are currently undergoing ten years imprisonment in the JBT teachers recruitment scam. Even after they get the bail soon, if they do, they will have to concentrate their attention and energy on fighting the two other seemingly more serious cases of disproportionate of assets and the HCS recruitments scam which are in advanced stages in the courts. Any adverse outcome may further affect the party’s mass-based chief Om Parkash Chautala’s acknowledged potential of mobilising people for the elections.

These factors may leave no option for the party, which has its mass base among the Jats, but to seek an alliance with the non-Jats dominated BJP. Even before the court’s verdict jailing the Chautalas for ten years, there were reports of the senior Chautala developing cordial contacts with some of the BJP’s top central leaders. The saffron party which will be eager to garner regional parties support for 2014 Lok Sabha poll will be too keen to shake hands with the INLD. The Chautalas family friend and the BJP ally Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, will extend a helping hand in bringing the INLD and the BJP closer.

The INLD and the BJP have a love-hate relationship. In 1996, the BJP joined hands with Bansi Lal’s Haryana Vikas Party in preference to the INLD, to form the Bansi Lal-led alliance government. But it deserted its senior ruling partner and in collaboration with the INLD toppled the Bansi Lal-led government and helped Chautala to form government. Later, the party parted ways with the INLD also. The party suffered a serious setback in Haryana’s prematurely held 2009 Assembly polls. Recently it formed an alliance with the Haryana Janhit Congress headed by the former chief minister Bhajan Lal’s son Kuldeep Bishnoi. The two parties joined hands to contest the 2014 elections contesting 45 seats each in the 90-member Assembly. For the Lok Sabha polls, the HJC will contest two of the ten seats and BJP the remaining eight.

The signs of fissures in the alliance appeared last week on the issue of contesting the forthcoming elections to the seven municipal corporations on their symbols. The BJP’s core committee last week decided to fight the elections on the party’s symbol. This was unilateral reversal of the decision taken by the BJP-HJC coordination committee on April 18 not to contest the elections on party symbols.

Whatever the final outcome of the controversy, it is not going to be a smooth-sailing relationship between the two parties. In Haryana’s caste-ridden society, caste and community considerations play a decisive role in deciding electoral and political decisions and in determining political relationships. The two already politically marginalised opposition parties have a common base among the state’s non-Jats. Over the past few years, the BJP has lost most of its ground it once had in Haryana. The HJC has only a few pockets of influence around its home district of Hisar, particularly in the Bhajan Lal family’s traditional homeground of Adampur belt.

When there is no intense anti-incumbency wave against the Congress when it is in power, it usually gets a substantial share of non-Jats and urbanites vote. The BJP and HJC’s competitive keenness to project themselves as the representative party of the non-Jats will naturally lead to clash of interests. Being a party primarily having urban middle-class base in the country, the BJP’s ambition naturally will be to widen its urban base including in the states including Haryana.

The Congress has its main support base among the non-Jats and Dalits with its Jat support varying depending on the political health of the INLD. Haryana’s foregoing perceived political scenario, if it remains unchanged till the 2014 elections, should look hopeful for Haryana’s ruling Congress. But there is always the proverbial slip between the cup and lip. Two developments are likely to dampen the optimistic predictions about the picture. One is the infighting in the ruling party. The party’s central leadership recently tried to bring about a patch-up between the feuding groups but without any encouraging result so far. Although chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has also recently taken certain measures to assuage the hurt feelings of a section of the dissident leaders. But dissenting voices still persist.

Punjab’s 2012 Assembly elections showed that the party lost the elections despite its bright prospects due to the presence of a large number of rebels in the field. If the rebel phenomenon is repeated in Haryana, it is bound to prove suicidal for the Congress in 2014.

The other more crucial issues that may hit the Congress are the deteriorated law and order, particularly the unchecked atrocities on Dalits by the Jat-dominated upper castes. The trend has often led to migration of Dalit families from the affected villages.

Chief Minister Hooda had recently declared that Bansi Lal was his role model for Haryana’s development. No doubt, Haryana under Hooda-led government has taken a big leap in the state’s development claiming to have surpassed in certain arenas even Modi’s Gujarat. But the real test for the ruling party will come from the form political realignments takes during the run-up to 2014 elections and improving the quality of governance, especially law and order. (IPA Service)