M A I N   N E W S

Acid test for Hooda in Adampur, Ratia bypoll
Elections likely to be held in January or February
Yoginder Gupta/TNS

Chandigarh, October 18
After the Hisar Lok Sabha byelection debacle, another acid test awaits Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda when the Ratia and Adampur Assembly seats go to the polls in the next few months.

The Ratia seat fell vacant after sitting INLD MLA Gian Chand Ode died on September 12. The Adampur Assembly seat will be vacated by HJC president Kuldeep Bishnoi following his victory from the Hisar Lok Sabha seat yesterday.

As per Election Commission of India norms, vacant seats in the Lok Sabha or the Assemblies have to be filled within six months. Therefore, the Haryana byelections are likely to be held in January or February as school examinations are held in March.

The Ratia and Adampur seats would pose a tough challenge to the ruling party in the state. Both fall in areas that are traditionally strongholds of the Chautalas and the Bhajan Lal family. Ratia is in Fatehabad district, which, along with Sirsa, is the pocket borough of the INLD.

Similarly, the Bhajan Lal family has never lost from Adampur. Since Bishnoi’s HJC has formed an alliance with the BJP, the two parties would in all probability contest one seat each. Bishnoi’s natural choice would be Adampur and he is likely to field a member of his family from there.

The INLD would contest both seats but it is too early to predict whether it would go it alone or enter into an alliance with a party like the BSP.

The saving grace for the Congress is that since both seats were with the Opposition, the outcome of the election would have no bearing on the government’s stability. However, the result would definitely have an impact on the morale of party workers.

The first challenge before Hooda is to find candidates acceptable to all senior leaders to rule out internal sabotage of the kind witnessed in many pockets in the Hisar bypoll. The search will not be easy given the Congress culture.

During campaigning, both the HJC-BJP combine and the INLD would accuse Hooda of discriminating against Fatehabad and Hisar districts. Though Hooda maintains that under his rule all regions of the state have developed, his party workers have not been able to make convincing claims on the ground.

Here, the Opposition parties score over the Congress. To overcome this problem, there has to be a better connect between the leadership and the Congress workers, who should not feel left out of power.

Political observers do not feel there would be repercussions on the Haryana Government in the aftermath of the Congress defeat in Hisar, at least in the near future. The Congress core committee headed by Sonia Gandhi is likely to discuss the bypoll shocker for the party on October 21. It is unlikely to see Haryana as an isolated case. The party would prefer to generalise the causes of its defeat instead of blaming any individual. Adampur and Ratia bypolls will give Hooda an opportunity to redeem himself.