State BJP chief Om Prakash Dhankar addresses a joint press conference with JJP’s Digvijay Chautala on Thursday. (Twitter/@DVJChautala)Days after it announced to go solo in the upcoming civic body polls in Haryana, the BJP, in a U-turn Thursday announced that it will contest the election jointly with the Jannayak Janta Party — its alliance partner in the ruling coalition. The announcement came two days after JJP announced its support to Kartikeya Sharma, an Independent candidate who filed his nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha election from the state sending panic waves in the Opposition Congress.
State BJP chief Om Prakash Dhankar, in a joint press conference with JJP’s Digvijay Chautala, announced that the two parties will soon release fresh list of candidates for the civic body polls.
“While JJP will contest the polls in four councils, the BJP shall contest in the remaining 14 as per our alliance’s seat sharing arrangement. The JJP will contest Tohana, Narwana, Mandi Dabwali and Nuh,” said Dhankar.
After being dumped by the BJP, the JJP on Tuesday had announced eight candidates for the posts of chairman in various municipal committees and councils. “Our candidates include Anil Sharma (Uchana), Vinod Pal (Gharaunda), Rekha Rani (Cheeka), Gulshan (Shahbad), while Rajni Arora shall be contesting from (Jind), Kavita Rathi (Bahadurgarh), Kamlesh Saini (Narnaul) and Shama Maan (Bhiwani),” JJP national convener Ajay Chautala had said.
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Asked about contesting the polls separately, despite being in alliance with BJP, Chautala had said, “We are fulfilling our role in the alliance with full honesty. In democratic set up, all political parties have the freedom of taking decisions for their respective bright futures”.
Earlier, on May28, the BJP had announced that it will go solo in the civic elections scheduled on June 19. “The BJP state executive has decided to contest the civic body polls alone in place of an alliance. In all municipal corporations, we will contest the election on party symbol,” Dhankar had said.
The BJP announcement had come a day after a Delhi court awarded a four-year jail term to former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala in a disproportionate assets (DA) case and ordered to seize four of his properties. Following the court order, the JJP had cancelled all its party programmes till further notice.
Congress had recently announced that it would not be contesting the municipal polls on party symbol. AAP, on the other hand, shall be contesting on the party symbol.
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