Ratia, December 4
Shattering the three-decade old jinx, the Congress today wrested the Ratia Assembly seat from the INLD, when its candidate Jarnail Singh defeated Sarfi Bai of the INLD by a margin of 12,703 votes.

In the bypoll for the Ratia Assembly segment, polling for which was held on November 30, the victorious Congress nominee polled 65,071 votes against 52,368 polled by Sarfi Bai of the INLD.

The BJP-HJC alliance candidate, Mahavir Parshad, finished third with 18,142 votes.

Parshad, the CPM nominee, Ram Kumar Bahbalpuria, who polled 2,166 votes, and 12 others lost their security deposits.

The bypoll was necessitated due to the death of the INLD MLA, Gian Chand Odh, in September this year and his party had fielded his widow, Sarfi Bai, in this election.

It is the first victory of the Congress here in the past over 29 years, as the party last won this seat in 1982.

While there were jubilations in the Congress camp after the victory, Sarfi Bai fainted and fell on the ground immediately after coming out of the counting centre.

Her son, Raj Kumar, immediately gave her support and a security guard brought a chair for her. As the INLD nominee was still feeling unwell, she was immediately shifted to a hospital.

“She is feeling better now and I have brought her back home ,” Raj Kumar told The Tribune.

Jarnail Singh’s victory was never in doubt ever since results for the first round came shortly after the counting started at 8 am.

The Congress nominee went on increasing his lead with every coming round, and barring two rounds, where he conceded a small lead to Sarfi Bai, Jarnail Singh’s victory margin continued increasing.

Jarnail Singh attributed his victory to Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s policies.

Hisar, December 4
Haryana Janhit Congress nominee Renuka Bishnoi today won the byelection to the Adampur assembly segment by 22,669 votes.

She defeated her nearest rival, Kulbir Beniwal of the Congress, who polled 27,607 votes against 50276 polled by Renuka Bishnoi. INLD candidate Ram Singh Baswana came third with 21,811 votes.

Bishnoi led right from the first round and kept increasing her lead as counting progressed. She did lose in a few rounds but that was not enough for any of her rivals to surpass her overall lead.

However, she polled about 1,400 votes less than her husband, Kuldeep Bishnoi, polled from Adampur during the recent byelection to the Hisar Lok Sabha seat. Kuldeep had polled 51,640 votes during the Lok Sabha poll.

Though the Congress recovered well to poll 27,607 votes this time, the tally was still way behind 42,209 votes polled by its nominee, Jai Parkash, in the 2009 assembly poll. In the recent byelection to the Hisar Lok Sabha seat, the Congress had polled only 15,472 votes.

As for the INLD, Baswana’s tally was less than what Ajay Chautala had polled from this segment in the byelection to the Hisar Lok Sabha seat. Chautala had polled 28,033 votes against 21,811 polled by Baswana this time.

The victory of Renuka Bishnoi was a foregone conclusion right from the time the byelection was announced. The Bhajan Lal clan has never lost an election from Adampur since 1968. The late Bhajan Lal had won from here in 1968, 1972, 1977, 1982, 1991, 1996, 2000 and 2005. His wife, Jasma, had won from this seat in 1987. Kuldeep Bishnoi won the seat in 2009.

Renuka and Kuldeep thanked the voters of Adampur for the resounding victory. They described the win as a “mandate from the voters for Renuka to follow in the footsteps of her late father-in-law”. She said she would “serve the people of Adampur as a member of the larger Adampur family,” adding that the attempts by the Opposition to divide Adampur had been thwarted by the voters.

Adampur has a total of 1,38,221 voters. As many as 75.79 per cent voters had exercised their franchise on November 30.

After declaration of the result, Renuka Bishnoi reached the office of returning officer Amardeep Jain accompanied by her mother-in-law, Jasma Devi. She was greeted by enthusiastic supporters. After receiving the certificate of election, she left in a procession for Adampur. The victory procession passed through several villages of the constituency. She was joined in the procession by Kuldeep Bishnoi. 

Chandigarh, December 4
Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said today that the party would return to power the third time in the next Assembly elections.

Addressing a press conference here, Hooda termed the Ratia result as “exceptional” since the Congress had won the seat after 28 years.

Stating that the Congress lost in Adampur because of a “pact” between the HJC-BJP combine and the INLD, he said any candidate other than a family member of the Bhajan Lal clan would have lost.

Denying any tacit understanding between the Congress and the HJC, as was being alleged by INLD chief Om Prakash Chautala, Hooda said the result had proved that the INLD and the HJC were hand in glove with each other.

Hooda claimed: “The INLD candidate in Adampur not only lost in his own village in Siswal but also from Daraulli, the village of the in-laws of Ajay Chautala of the INLD. However, in the recent Hisar Lok Sabha byelection, the INLD had got maximum votes from this village. This should be evidence enough to show which parties had joined hands.”

In the case of Adampur, the BJP plus HJC (BL) got 50.57 per cent votes in the Hisar Lok Sabha byelection held recently, which were reduced to 48.6 pere cent in this assembly byelection. Similarly, the percentage of the INLD also declined from 27.45 to 20.85 per cent. On the other hand, the percentage of the Congress increased from 15.15 to 26.39.

In the case of Ratia, the percentage of the BJP plus HJC (BL) was 13.64 in the Vidhan Sabha elections in 2009. It was reduced to 12.59 in this byelection. And that of the INLD declined from 39.72 to 36.33. But the percentage of the Congress increased from 37.04 to 45.15 per cent. 

Ratia, December 4
For Ashok Tanwar, the Congress MP from Sirsa, winning the bypoll for the Ratia Assembly seat for his protégé, Jarnail Singh, has been almost an action replay of his own victory in May 2009.

Not a familiar name here before he was allotted the ticket by the Congress on April 6, 2009, Tanwar reached Sirsa on April 8 that year, filed his nomination paper on 16 and walked away with a victory in the INLD citadel in the election held on May 7, 2007.

Almost in an identical fashion, Tanwar, who was in charge of Jarnail Singh’s campaign in the November 30 Ratia bypoll, snatched an astounding victory from the hands of the INLD on a seat that has been with the non-Congress parties for the last three decades in less than 25 days.

The victory is particularly amazing for the Congress because many people had written off the party after its pitiable third position in the Hisar parliamentary byelection.

“Today’s victory is the result of people’s trust in the Congress leadership at the Centre as well as in Haryana and the hard work put in by the party workers,” Tanwar said about the turnaround.

The Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had given a slogan of 30 years versus three years during his campaign for the Ratia byelection.

Chandigarh, December 4
The convincing victory of the Congress in the Ratia Assembly byelection and the relegation of the INLD to the third position in the Adampur constituency have come as a silencer for the detractors of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. The party’s performance in the two byelections will now silence the INLD, the HJC-BJP alliance and Hooda’s critics within his own party.

All these three had become hyperactive after the humiliating defeat of the Congress in the Hisar Lok Sabha byelection less than two months ago.

The INLD, which had been claiming that the days of the Hooda government were numbered, has lost the moral right to do so after the Congress demolished its citadel in Ratia.

The HJC-BJP combine had been claiming that it had captured the imagination of the non-Jat voters in the state after its victory in Hisar. The fact that its candidate forfeited his security deposit in Ratia goes to prove that the non-Jat voters had not accepted the combine yet. No wonder the combine has won the Adampur seat, but the victory is more due to the nurturing of the constituency by the late Bhajan Lal than because of the popularity of the new alliance. To make this myth work, it was a must for the combine to put up a good show outside Hisar, which it has not been able to do.

Hooda’s detractors in the Congress had been pestering the high command that under his leadership the party is doomed in Haryana. The high command is now unlikely to give them an ear.

The results of the three byelections support the hypothesis that the Congress faired badly in Hisar because of a sharp division of the electorate on anti-Bishnoi and anti-Chautala lines. Since in Hisar the Congress candidate was perceived as too weak to defeat either of them, the voter deserted him and chose the candidate of his or her choice. Those who wanted Chautala to be defeated went to Bishnoi and those who wanted Bishnoi to lose, they voted for the INLD.

For a change, the Congress contested the Ratia seat like a well-organised team. There was no infighting among senior leaders managing the campaign. Hooda’s appeal to the Ratia electorate to give him a chance to prove his intentions of developing all regions of the state equally had a magic effect. Now it is up to him to show whether he can win the loyalty of the Ratia electorate for years to come or it will be short-lived.

Sonepat, December 4
Panic has gripped people owning shops and houses in the town after the PWD has served encroachments notices on them in the past few days under the Punjab Scheduled Roads Act, 1963.

Though the government had given opportunities to such owners in the past to get their encroachments regularised by paying charges, they could not do so reportedly for want of information about exact measurement of the encroached land.

In protest against the notices, shopkeepers of Sikka Colony closed their shops at Bahalgarh road on Saturday, complaining that despite their pleas about three years back, the authorities concerned did not provide encroachment-related information to them. They demanded another opportunity to get the encroached land regularised.

Rajiv Jain, state media in charge of the BJP, demanded another opportunity for the affected people to get the encroached land regularised. He announced that the BJP would file public interest litigation in the high court, seeking relief for the affected people. 

Chandigarh, December 4
Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda today announced an increase of Rs 11 per quintal in the State Advised Price (SAP) of sugarcane for the current season over last year’s price.

The Chief Minister, who was addressing mediaersons here today, was asked whether the government has decided the prices of sugarcane.

He said these prices were decided but had not been announced because of the model code of conduct which was in force due to the Ratia and Adampur byelection.. He said the increase in price of sugarcane had been made in the larger interest of the farming community.

He said that as a result of this increase, the price of early variety of sugarcane would be Rs 231 instead and that of mid-variety Rs 226 instead of Rs 215. Similarly, the price of late variety had been increased from Rs 210 to Rs 221. These prices were higher than those in Punjab.

Karnal, December 4
In a swift action, a team of the Industrial Financial Corporation of India (IFCI) officials, accompanied by police and district officials, today took control of “Haveli”, located on the Karnal-Delhi national highway, for alleged non-payment of a loan amounting to Rs 111 crore.

The raid by at least 36 persons created panic among the staff that heaved a sigh of relief after the corporation officials assured them that none of them would be fired and that they had just taken control of the hotel.

“Haveli” is a favourite eating joint on the national highway, visited by thousands of tourists and long queues of vehicles are seen here during the day. The promoters of the hotel project had taken a loan from the IFCI, New Delhi, and a huge amount of Rs 111 crore was yet to be returned.

The corporation officials said that several notices were sent for payment of the loan but nothing was done and finally, the corporation had to move the court, which ordered takeover of the hotel.