BJP’s Dhankar pulls out all stops to wrest Badli seat from Cong MLA Kuldeep Vats

The Badli Assembly constituency, located adjoining Delhi and Gurugram district, is one of the hot seats in the state as BJP national secretary and former Agriculture Minister Om Prakash Dhankar is trying his fortune from here in the Assembly elections.

He is pulling out all stops to wrest the seat from the Congress, which has again fielded its outgoing MLA Kuldeep Vats against him. Ajeet Gulia, who enjoys the support of Gulia Khap Teesa, has spiced up the poll battle by jumping into the fray as an Independent candidate. He was one of the contenders for the Congress ticket.

AAP’s Harpal Singh and JJP’s Krishan Kumar are trying to make the contest multi-cornered while in a dramatic turn of events, Mahendra Singh, who was the BSP-INLD candidate, had withdrawn his nomination, leaving candidates and poll observers busy in ascertaining where majority of the Scheduled Caste (SCs) voters would move now. Badli is dominated by the Jats.

Dhankar emerged victorious by defeating Independent Kuldeep Vats by a margin of 9,266 votes in 2014. He then became Agriculture Minister in the Manohar Lal Khattar Cabinet.

Dhankar lost the next election to the Congress candidate Vats in 2019. In this election, JJP candidate Sanjay Kablana secured 28,145 votes. Sanjay has now joined the BJP and is in fray as the party candidate from adjoining Beri Assembly constituency. Dhankar is likely to get the benefit of it in this poll.

As far as the poll issues are concerned, Dhankar is seeking votes in the name of development works undertaken during his tenure from 2014 to 2019 in the constituency and the BJP government’s promises of providing government jobs on merit and monthly financial aid to women. He also does not forget to target the Congress over the issues of land acquisition and government jobs. Dhankar claims that the BJP gave the jobs on merit while parchi-kharchi system prevailed during the previous Congress regime.

Similarly, Kuldeep Vats too reminded the people about various development projects, including AIIMS Badhsa and National Cancer Institute, which came to Badli during the previous Congress regime led by Bhupinder Singh Hooda. He also tries to corner the BJP government over corruption and deteriorating law and order.