Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala on Tuesday said the Jannayak Janta Party would not engage in politics of intimidation and threats while responding to Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut’s comments against him and his father, PTI reported.

Raut, when asked about the delay in government formation in Maharashtra and the power struggle between the BJP and the Shiv Sena, said there was no “Dushyant in Maharashtra whose father is in the jail”.

Raut was referring to Ajay Chautala, who has been in prison since 2013 on charges of criminal conspiracy, corruption, and forgery after being convicted in a teachers’ recruitment scam. But he was released from Tihar jail on Sunday morning on a 14-day furlough, ostensibly to attend his son’s swearing-in ceremony. The Opposition in Haryana has accused the BJP of using Ajay Chautala for negotiations. On Sunday, Ajay Chautala had claimed that he had advised his son to side with the BJP instead of the Congress.

In the results of the Haryana Assembly elections declared on October 24, The BJP won 40 seats in the 90-member Haryana Assembly. It was six seats short of a majority and so took the support of the Jannayak Janta Party, which won 10 seats. The Congress won 31 seats.

“It is not our intention to fight others or use politics of intimidation and threats,” Dushyant Chautala said in response to Raut’s barb. “We want to implement honest politics for the next five years.”

“It means he knows who Dushyant Chautala is,” the Haryana deputy chief minister added, according to NDTV. “My father has been in jail for six years, he never asked about his well-being. Ajay Chautalaji has not come out before term. Such statements don’t add to Sanjayji’s stature.”

Raut has been consistently attacking the BJP for allegedly going back on a power-sharing deal in Maharashtra. He claimed that party chief Uddhav Thackeray had “other options” to form government in the state, but they did not want to go with that alternative. The Sena is determined to share the chief minister’s post as well as Cabinet portfolios during the next government’s five-year tenure. However, the BJP is not keen to accept the “50:50 formula”.

The BJP won 105 seats in the Maharashtra Assembly polls, while the Shiv Sena secured 56. Together, the two parties can cross the majority mark of 145 in the legislature to form a government.

Senior BJP leader Chandrakant Patil on Tuesday said that Thackeray and BJP chief Amit Shah would finalise the agreement between the two parties. The BJP had reportedly agreed to an “equitable distribution of power and not on the post of the chief minister”, PTI reported, citing unidentified BJP leaders.

Thackeray cancelled a meeting with the BJP on Tuesday for government formation in Maharashtra, hours after incumbent Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said his party had not promised any equal power-sharing deal. Fadnavis also asserted that he would serve as chief minister for the entire term of five years.

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