Kurukshetra, October 6
They are all first-timers. They are young, they are Congress candidates and they come from a humble background. They are Rahul Gandhi’s boys. But the similarity ends there.

Candidate Anil Dhantori from Shahbad is a mechanical engineer. As he sweats it out in villages falling in his constituency, he remarks:

“They are my people. My village, Dhantori, falls in my constituency. I have worked in the youth wing of the Congress and have been working in this constituency for the past six years. It doesn’t seem like the first time to me, at all.”

Dhantori left a fat pay packet and a job with the JCBL to plunge into politics.

During his speeches, he stresses that the Congress has brought an era of development. “It is time to pay back the Congress for all that the government has done for you. Vote for me to repay the Congress for its work,” he says as he gulps a glass of buttermilk at Dhurana.

The speech over, the people, essentially Gujjars, gather around him to assure him of their support. He moves door to door to give his campaign a personal touch, time permitting. Dhantori seems to be placed in a favourable situation compared to his rivals Jitender Kumar (INLD), Baldev Singh (BSP), Krishna Bedi (BJP) and Suraj Bhan Kataria (HJC).

Unlike him, Suresh Dhanda from Radaur seems more aggressive of the two. “Your future is in your hands. You must vote for the Congress if you want development and jobs for your near and dear ones.

“Without the recommendation of the local legislator , nobody is going to bother for you. I will get you the respect you derserve in the Haryana secretariat. You will be served tea and biscuits there,” he tells a gathering in Rampur. The villagers look evidently pleased.

Ask him about his experience of fighting an election and he is quick to point out: “I am not new to politics. I am a grassroots worker who has learnt politics the tough way.

“I have managed election campaigns of quite a few biggies in Haryana politics and the Chief Minister knows about my work. I have worked alongside him for years.”

Dhanda faces former MLA Bishan Lal Saini of the INLD, Ashwani Kumar of the BSP, Shyam Singh Rana of the BJP and Mamraj Kamboj of the HJC.

Hisar, October 6
The Bhajan Lal clan which has represented the prestigious Adampur assembly segment for over four decades is trying to retain the seat for the 11th time in a row.

It has fielded the former Chief Minister’s younger son, Kuldeep Bishnoi, as the HJC nominee.

Thus far, the Bhajan Lal clan has had complete confidence of the voters making this, perhaps, the only constituency in Haryana which has not elected anyone from outside the Bishnoi family ever since the state came into being in 1966.

This time there are 10 contestants in the fray. The Congress has fielded former Lok Sabha member from Hisar Jai Parkash against Bishnoi. In the byelection last year, the Congress had fielded Devi Lal’s son Ranjit Singh against Bhajan Lal.

The INLD has put up Rajesh Godara, a liquor baron closely related to the Chautalas. He has contested from here earlier too. However, in the 2008 byelection, the party had chosen Sampat Singh, a former finance minister, who has since crossed over to the Congress.

The BJP has fielded Pawan Kumar while the BSP has chosen Rajesh Kumar. However, their presence in the contest is inconsequential. The fight is between Bishnoi, Jai Parkash and Rajesh Godara.

Since 2005, the Bishnoi clan’s margin of victory has been going down steadily. That year Bhajan Lal won this seat by a record margin of 71,000 votes. In the 2008 election, his margin came down to 26,000 votes. In the recent Lok Sabha poll he won from this segment by a mere 14,000 votes.

Despite this, the Bishnoi camp is confident of pulling of a respectable victory. Yet, the Bishnois are not taking chances. The father-son duo is campaigning hard.

The constituency has seen changes in its geographical profile after the recent delimitation exercise. Some villages have gone to the neighbouring Nalwa constituency from where Bishnoi’s mother Jasma Devi is the party nominee. However, that makes no major change in its political profile.

The Congress has made inroads into this segment since 2005. Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has visited the constituency several times since he assumed office.

The INLD too is campaigning hard making things a bit difficult for the Bishnois. Its nominee Rajesh Godara is well-known in the area.

The constituency has always been sensitive from polling angle. The authorities have made special security arrangements to ensure a peaceful poll.

In Barwala all parties have chosen greenhorns- Ram Niwas Ghorela (Cong), Subhash Tak (HJC), Sheela Bhayan(INLD) and Jitendra Jog(BJP).

The constituency’s caste profile has changed. Earlier, it was a Jat-dominated constituency, now non-Jats are in a majority.

In the newly constituted Uklana (SC) constituency, INLD’s Seema Gaibipur is pitted against Rajbala of the HJC, Naresh Selwal of the Congress, Sandeep of the BSP and Nar Singh Das of the BJP.

Karnal, October 6
BJP president Rajnath Singh today blamed the wrong economic policies of the UPA government for the price rise and claimed that this trend would continue if the Congress was returned to power in the state.

Addressing a public meeting at Salwan in Karnal district in support of BJP candidate Sardar Baksheesh Singh, the BJP chief said the Congress government advanced the poll in Haryana because it was aware that prices would further rise in the next few months.

Dubbing the UPA government as a “government of scams”, he accused the government of acquitting Quattrocchi in the Bofors case and said it was strange that the main accused had been let off even without proper investigation and trial.

He said the Vajpayee government had frozen the accounts of Quattrocchi but the Congress government first permitted the accounts to be operated and now the CBI was all set to withdraw the case against him.

Exuding confidence that the BJP would do well in the assembly poll in Haryana, the BJP chief said his party would advance loans to farmers at 3 per cent interest, introduce an agricultural income insurance scheme and raise the relief in case of natural calamities to Rs 15,000.

The old-age pension would be raised to Rs 1,000 per month and effective steps would be taken to contain price rise, he added.

(Barara) Ambala, October 6
“China is a threat to India. In 1962 also, the Congress gave the call of “Hindi-Chini bhai bhai”, yet we were attacked by them. The Centre needs to be cautious and prepared,” said Rajnath Singh, BJP president. He was addressing a rally at Barara in Ambala today.

Rajnath Singh also demanded the government to take a tough stand against Pakistan.

Asking the people to vote for BJP candidate Mange Ram Punjail, he said the voters of Haryana should bring a BJP government to power in the state if they wanted to enjoy a corruption-free government and good governance.

He said the Manmohan Singh government’s “economic formula” had failed.

“While the whole world is facing recession and prices of basic commodities have dropped. We in India are facing price rise.”

Ballabgarh (Faridabad), October 6
Sitting Congress MLA from the Ballabgarh assembly constituency Sharda Rathore is locked in a triangular battle with Chander Bhatia of the HJC and the BJP’s Surender Tevtiya.

This constituency, after delimitation, has assumed an urban character.This has thrown up a serious challenge to Rathore, who won the last election mainly on the support of her Rajput community in the countryside and Punjabis in the urban pocket.

Post-delimitation, the Rajputs now account for merely 5,000 votes, while the Punjabis and the Aggarwals number about 20,000 each. The two-time MLA on the BJP ticket, Bhatia (HJC) is a Punjabi while Tevtiya, a sitting councillor of the Faridabad Municipal Corporation, is a Jat, a community whose number is about 16,000 in Ballabgarh. Finding the Punjabis inclined towards the HJC, Rathore recently tried hard to wean away the Aggarwal voters, who have traditionally backed the BJP. But the BJP launched a counter-offensive, as a result of which the Aggarwals have now apparently returned to its fold.Bhatia has an image of a fighter for public causes. He maintains his links with a section of the BJP cadre and hopes to encash on these now.

The BJP is hopeful that its nominee will be able to cash in on the support from the Jats as well as the Aggarwals. His status as a sitting councillor further strengthens BJP's optimism.While Rathore harps on development works in the constituency in the past five years, her opponents challenge her to show any work on the ground to prove her claims. In the adjoining newly created Tigaon and Prithla constituencie, the Congress is having a run for its money. In Tigaon there appears to be a straight contest between Haryana BJP president Krishan Pal Gurjar and Congress nominee Lalit Nagar, who has made a name as a realtor in the area. Tigaon is essentially a Gujjar-dominated seat. About 95 per cent of its area is part of the erstwhile Mewla Maharajpur, which has always returned a Gujjar candidate.

The Gujjars feel proud that one of them is president of the Haryana BJP. They are rooting for Krishan Pal.Prithla is witnessing a three-cornered contest among the Congress, the BSP and the INLD. The final outcome depends on many "ifs" and the situation appears fluid.The Congress has fielded Raghuvir Singh Tewatia, a Jat, considered to be close to CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda. The INLD has fielded a Jat woman, Shashi Bala Tewatia, a former head of the Haryana Red Cross Society.

The BSP has fielded Tek Chand Sharma, who quit the HJC during the runup to the elections. He is counting on the support of Brahmins and Dalits.

Jind, October 6
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) suffered a setback here today when its candidate from the Jind seat Swami Raghvanand declared to quit the election battlefield and announced his retirement from the politics.

Raghvanand was a senior party leader and had remained the vice-president of the Haryana unit of the BJP. The party is contesting from all assembly seats in the state.

Rahgvanand, who had contested the 2004 Lok Sabha elections as the BJP candidate from Hisar and the state assembly byelections from Adampur in 2008, blamed the lowering of values in politics for his abrupt decision and claimed that he was fed up with double standards and fake political leaders, who he said had polluted the politics by pure capitalism and opportunism.

He said the politics had been made a business and it was impossible for a person like him to accept and follow such a work which has no ideology or principle that was in the larger interests of society.

He said he felt let down and offended by the manner in which candidates of all parties were engaged in accusing each other.

The socio-political environment in both the rural and urban areas in the state was damaged badly and resulted in depletion of brotherhood and faith.

Though Swami Rahgvanand did not blame anyone for his decision, it is reported that the “indifferent” behaviour and proper support from a senior national-level party leader during the ongoing campaign may have been behind the sudden move by the BJP candidate.

Panipat, October 6
Already facing opposition from party cadres of the district, the road ahead seemingly tougher for BJP candidate Sanjay Bhatia as more party workers have put in their papers to register their protest against his candidature.

As many as 28 party workers at a meeting here yesterday submitted their resignation from the primary membership of the party. Bhatia had faced resistance from his party men during the 2005 elections as well. He had lost his security deposit then.. A couple of days ago, councillors Harish Sharma, Raj Kumar Saini and Satbir, presiden, Nagar Mandal, Surinder Tuteja, senior vice-president of the district unit Ramesh Batra, and members of the Marg Darshak Mandal of the local unit had resigned from their posts in protest against Bhatia’s candidature.

They, however, did not resign from the primary membership of the party.