After Akali Dal, BJP-ally JJP not to contest Delhi polls

After the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) has now declared that it will not fight the Delhi Assembly election in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The JJP, which is in alliance with the BJP in Haryana, had earlier announced that it will contest the Delhi assembly elections.

However, Haryana Deputy Chief Minister and JJP chief Dushyant Chautala confirmed that his party will not contest the polls.

According to a report in NDTV, Chautala confirmed his party would not field candidates “since symbol is a very important issue” and the JJP was unwilling to fight “on a new symbol at such short notice”.

“We won’t field candidates in Delhi polls since symbol is a very important issue. We had requested the Election Commission to give key or slippers as symbol… these were given to another organisation. In such a situation, JJP has decided not to contest,” the JJP was reported as saying.

In a major jolt to the BJP, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) of Punjab, BJP’s long-standing ally, on Monday decided to stay away from the Delhi Assembly election rather than contesting with BJP.

This comes as BJP has faced major setbacks over alliance with its partners in Maharashtra and Jharkhand.

The decision was taken by SAD to withhold its stand on the contentious CAA and NRC, as they have opposed nationwide NRC and sought revision in CAA adding Muslims with the other six religions who were given the ease to get Indian Citizenship.

As per the reports, another issue between the BJP and SAD was over contesting the election under a single symbol. BJP wanted the Akali leaders to contest under ‘Lotus’ symbol instead of SAD’s weighing scales. Akali leaders were not ready for this agreement.

Delhi will go to polls on February 8 while the counting and declaration of results will take place on February 11.