With this move BJP deftly accomplished dual objectives. By dumping Jananyak Janata Party (JJP), and ending that alliance, it not only managed to shed its coalition baggage but orchestrated the replacement of Manohar Lal Khattar whose popularity reportedly dwindled over recent times.

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With the Haryana Assembly polls only six months away, talks are on to hold the elections simultaneously with the Lok Sabha polls.

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The BJP, which has been looking for ways to "get rid" of its ally before the Lok Sabha polls found a way out when it refused JJP's demand for two Lok Sabha seats.  As JJP showed signs of pulling out, the chief minister, Khattar and his cabinet ministers submitted their resignations to Haryana Governor Bandaru Dattatreya this morning.

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There was no threat to the government as in the  90 member House, the BJP had 41 MLAs and also enjoyed the support of six of seven independents. JJP has 10 MLAs, while the main Opposition Congress has 30 legislators. The Indian national Lok Dal and Haryana Lokhit Party have one MLA each.

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BJP intends to contest all the 10 Lok Sabha seats in the state. It may be recalled that during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls BJP had won all the ten seats.  As the new government gets ready to take charge of the state, sources revealed that five of the 10 JJP MLAs were in touch with the BJP.

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In fact the BJP had been planning to dump the JJP after it won the recent Assembly polls in the Hindi heartland-Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. The Jat dominated JJP had tried to queer BJP's pitch by fielding 19 candidates during the Rajasthan Assembly polls. But the move failed to take off as the JJP candidates lost deposits in all the seats. The humiliation was complete as its recorded vote share was merely 0.14 percent, less than NOTA.

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There had been a series of closed door meetings among the top BJP leaders to discuss the "JJP problem." Majority of the BJP and RSS leaders reached a conclusion that it would be "better to get rid of JJP," before the Lok Sabha polls and if needed there could be a "post-poll alliance." During the 2019 Assembly polls in the state,  BJP with 41 seats emerged as the single largest but fell five short of majority. The BJP then stitched a post-poll alliance with the JJP which had 10 MLAs.

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Even as the Jats comprise nearly 25 percent of the state's population, the BJP had strategically wooed the non-Jats which included dalits and OBCs in the state. The BJP which had been trying to maintain a balance between the Jat and non-Jat vote bank, however, changed tack and gave a clear signal to the backward caste by appointing OBC leader Nayab Singh Saini - he is the Lok sabha MP from Kurukshetra - as the Haryana state president.

Incidentally, the outgoing two term Haryana chief minister Khattar, a non-Jat, belongs to the Khatri caste, a minority Punjabi community. His elevation as chief minister reportedly secured significant support from the non-Jat caste.

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Even as the BJP played the non-Jat card, the party spin doctors appeared to be confident that conferring Bharat Ratna to former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh would help it consolidate a large chunk of the Jat vote bank. It was claimed that during 2019 Lok Sabha elections BJP secured over 45% of Jat votes.

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OPT/BOX

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BJP poll playbook is to change CMs just before polls -

In Madhya Pradesh, four time chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was made to step down

In Rajasthan, Vasundhara Raje was eased out

Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Karnataka saw similar moves before polls

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