Nomination withdrawal ends today in Haryana, BJP & Cong woo rebels

Ahead of the last date for withdrawal of nominations tomorrow, the BJP and the Congress are going all out to woo the rebels.

Senior leaders have been assigned the onerous task of not only getting the rebels back into the party fold but also getting them to support the official party candidates.

While the state BJP top brass, including CM Nayab Singh Saini, fanned out across Haryana to convince the rebels to withdraw their nominations, former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and his MP son Deepender Hooda also reached out to the dissenters.

They are learnt to have met with some success though most rebels remained non-commital today, stating that they would consult their workers before taking a final call.

Saini’s first stop was at Mahendragarh rebel and senior leader Ram Bilas Sharma’s residence even though Sharma had already announced that he would withdraw his nomination against the party candidate a day after filing his papers.

The CM also met former Narnaul municipal council chief and BJP Mahila Morcha district president Bharti Saini.

After the meeting, Bharti said a workers’ meeting would be held to decide on the withdrawal though the talks were “very positive”. Party election co-in charge Biplab Dev was slated to call on Randhir Kapriwas (Rewari), Santosh Yadav (Ateli) and Shashi Ranjan Parmar (Tosham). The three leaders received phone calls urging them to withdraw their nominations.

“I will not go to the Vidhan Sabha this time but will decide which candidate to support. I did get a call from Biplab Deb. He said some urgent programme had come up in Palwal and he would see me tomorrow. I conveyed to him that it was entirely his wish if he wanted to see me. My decision is made. Everything will be out in the open tomorrow,” Yadav said.

Sonepat rebel and senior BJP leader Rajiv Jain, too, received a message that the CM would visit his residence. Other senior leaders, including state party chief Mohan Lal Badoli, have already approached him for a “truce”.

Many other rebel candidates maintained that they had received calls from senior party functionaries and official candidates to support the party in the Assembly elections.

“The party has assigned this task to five seniormost leaders, including the CM, the state chief and party in-charges. The candidates have also approached the rebels at their level. We are all on the job,” BJP in charge Satish Punia said.

The Congress, too, is pulling out all the stops and the Hooda father-son duo has been constantly in touch with the rebels. “Most of our leaders have agreed to withdraw in favour of the party candidates,” Hooda said, while Deepender maintained that at least 12 withdrawals were likely tomorrow.

Sources said withdrawal by senior leader Sampat Singh from Nalwa, Prem Singh Malik from Hansi and Jasbir Malor from Ambala was on the cards, while talks were still on with a few others. “The rebels have time till tomorrow. We still have the morning to convince them to withdraw,” a senior leader said.

Meanwhile, Chief Electoral Officer Pankaj Aggarwal said the candidates could withdraw their nominations till 3 pm tomorrow. “Once the withdrawal deadline is over, we will assign symbols to the contestants,” he said.