In search of greener pastures

"Let bygones be bygones. We are here to get the country rid of communal forces and eradicate the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from the political map." This was what Kuldeep Bishnoi, son of former Haryana chief minister (CM) Bhajan Lal, said when he merged his Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) into the Indian National Congress (INC) in April 2016.

- NITIN KUMAR

Five years later, on August 4, Bishnoi joined the very party he wanted to eradicate. Two days before he formally joined the BJP, he tweeted: "Every bird is injured here, but the one who could fly again is alive." The move came months after Bishnoi had a series of meetings with the BJP leadership-party president J P Nadda, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and Haryana Chief Minister M L Khattar. According to sources, cross-voting by Bishnoi in favour of a BJP-backed independent candidate during the Rajya Sabha polls in July - which resulted in his expulsion from designated posts in the Congress - was to prove his commitment to the BJP.

"Cross-voting was Bishnoi's repentance for breaking the alliance with the BJP before the 2014 Assembly polls. It also helped the BJP deliver a humiliating defeat to senior Congress leader Ajay Makan, who was the latter's Rajya Sabha candidate," said a senior BJP leader.

An unfulfilled wish Bishnoi, 53, is a four-time member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), two-term member of Parliament (MP), and son of Haryana's longest-serving CM, but unlike his father, he has never been a minister. Bhajan Lal headed several state and Union portfolios, including agriculture and environment, and forest during Rajiv Gandhi's administration.