To emerge victorious in assembly and Lok Sabha elections to be held in Haryana, all the political parties are on toes to woo the voters. In this series, the Congress stalwart and former Chief Minister Bhupendra Singh Hooda had announced last month to appoint Deputy Chief Ministers from four communities: Brahmin, Dalit, OBC and general category and his statement caused a lot of stir in the politics of the state. Meanwhile, Bhupendra Singh Hooda here on said in Chandigarh that if the Congress government comes to power, the party will make four deputy CMs from aforesaid communities. He said that he still stands by his words and following his statement, the political corridors have once again been stirred up. Notably two days ago, Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), which has been in exile from power for almost two decades in Haryana, has now announced here on Wednesday to appoint two Deputy Chief Ministers from the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Backward Caste (BC). The INLD bigwigs Abhay Singh Chautala said here on Tuesday that following the consent of the all party leaders, the party has decided to appoint two Deputy Chief Ministers from SC and BC communities after the party comes in power. Keeping in view caste equations, all the parties are trying to woo voters mainly from SC and BC categories. Recently, the saffron BJP has appointed party Naib Singh Saino who belongs to the OBC category and an MP from Kurukshetra parliamentary seat as the new state president of the party replacing OP Dhankar, a jat stalwart, to woo voters from backward classes.
Notably, after the state was formed in 1966, as many as 6 Deputy Chief Ministers including the present DCM Dushyant Chautala, have been appointed in Haryana so far. Chand Ram was the first Deputy Chief Minister of Haryana followed by Mangal Sen and Banarasi Das Gupta. Just five months after Haryana came into existence, the state had to face political turmoil which necessitated the appointment of Chand Ram as the Deputy Chief Minister. Later, Hukum Singh and Chandra Mohan Bishnoi held the portfolio of the Deputy Chief Minister. Among all the six Deputy CMs appointed so far, current Deputy CM Dushyant Chautala has had the longest tenure.
After him, the second longest serving Deputy CM is Chander Mohan Bishnoi, who held the portfolio of Deputy CM for around 39 months in the Hooda government then. Chand Ram , first Deputy Deputy CM, was upset with the government being run under the leadership of Hooda, then Chief Minister, for not getting him a berth in cabinet. Following the same, he not only brought down the then government led by Bhagwat Dayal Sharma, then CM but was also appointed the Deputy CM in the next government.
It is pertinent to mention that SC and BC communities constitute a sizable chunk of vote bank in Haryana which has forced all political parties to focus on the votes belonging to both communities. The data revealed that SC and BC category in Haryana constitute about 51 percent of the total vote population. Based on the data, there are a total of 1368365 families of SC category in Haryana which represent 20.71 percent of the total families.
Similarly, the number of BC (A) and BC (B) families is 1123852 and 869079 constituting 16.52 percent and 12.78 percent of the total families.
Pertaining to the issue, Hemant Kumar, an expert and lawyer in Haryana and Punjab and Haryana high court said that there is no mention of the post of Deputy Chief Minister in the State/Territory and Deputy Prime Minister anywhere constitutionally in the relevant articles of the Constitution of India, yet from time to time, as a result of political compulsions and the need of coalition governments, the ruling parties Or Deputy Prime Ministers/Deputy Chief Ministers have been made by alliances.
