Cues that stand out in Haryana
Julana: Vinesh Phogat versus the rest
From being one of the most low-key Assembly segments, Julana in Jind district is now the cynosure of all eyes. The entry of wrestler Vinesh Phogat in the dangal of Haryana politics has spiced up the election atmosphere in this nondescript segment, tossed between the towns of Jind and Rohtak.
There’s a reason the Congress has fielded Vinesh from Julana. She is from the Jat community of course and her husband, Somvir Rathee, is from Khera Bakhta village in Jind district, which is part of the Assembly segment. “Vinesh is bahu for the people of this constituency. We have seen her in an intense battle on the wrestling mat in the Olympics. We are also witness to her prolonged struggle against former Wrestling Federation of India president and BJP leader Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. She is a fighter. And we love her fighting spirit,” says Rajpal Singh, a former sarpanch of Karsola village in Jind district.
Up against Vinesh are Yogesh Kumar Bairagi of the BJP, Surender Lathar of the INLD, professional wrestler Kavita Dalal from AAP, besides sitting MLA Amarjeet Dhanda of the JJP. On the ground, though, these rivals seem to have been overshadowed by Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. Soon after the Congress fielded Vinesh, Brij Bhushan unleashed verbal volleys to target her. From taking political jibes like “her real motive is exposed” to making personal remarks, he has emerged as a key issue in her electoral battle in Julana.
While she has been countering him and brushing aside the allegations levelled by him, Vinesh says “this man could stoop even lower”. For many of her supporters and wrestling fans — and there is no shortage of them here — the political fight is turning into one of prestige and honour. “He is not in the electoral fray but seems the only rival for Vinesh here. By ensuring her victory, we will take revenge for all the gibberish he has been saying,” says Ravinder, a resident of Gatauli village.
Vinesh, however, maintains that she is not taking her political opponents lightly. “I learnt this from wrestling that we should not deem our rivals as being lightweight. Though I have been getting support and the love of people, I cannot lower my guard. I have been working hard. It’s a new learning as well,” she says. She also faces dissension within the Congress, as some leaders are upset over her sudden entry. Though two-time MLA Parminder Singh Dhull and most of the other aspirants joined the Phogat bandwagon when Rohtak MP Deepender Hooda came during the filing of her nomination papers, the probability of “bheetarghat” (internal sabotage) by the disgruntled aspirants is not ruled out.
Julana constituency has a total of 1.8 lakh voters — 46 per cent of them are Jats, 21 per cent belong to the Scheduled Castes, 18 per cent are OBCs, and 12 per cent Brahmins, besides others.
Rania: Devi Lal clan, one against the other
Anil Kakkar
No Assembly constituency exemplifies the twists and turns as well as the internal family dynamics of Haryana politics better than Rania in Sirsa district. Pitted against each other this time are members of the Devi Lal clan.
The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) has fielded Arjun Chautala, the younger son of senior leader Abhay Chautala. He will be up against sitting MLA Ranjit Singh — former Deputy PM Devi Lal’s son and the younger brother of Arjun’s grandfather, former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala. The Minister of Power and Jails till recently, Ranjit Singh had won in 2019 from Rania as an Independent. He is contesting as an Independent again, though he had joined the BJP earlier this year.
As the BJP candidate, Ranjit Singh lost the Hisar Lok Sabha election to Congress’ Jai Parkash. The poll saw even the Chautala bahus competing against each other — former Deputy CM Dushyant Singh Chautala’s mother Naina Singh Chautala from the INLD offshoot Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), and her sister-in-law Sunaina Chautala as the INLD candidate.
Arjun had contested the Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat in 2019 as an INLD candidate and finished fifth.
The JJP and Ranjit Singh have joined forces to contest the Rania and Dabwali seats. Ranjit Singh will support JJP’s Digvijay Singh — Dushyant’s brother — in Dabwali, and the JJP will assist Ranjit Singh in Rania.
Meanwhile, Aditya Sihag, the son of Om Prakash Chautala’s youngest brother Jagdish Chander, who joined the BJP in 2014, is now the INLD-BSP alliance candidate from Dabwali. He will support the INLD in Rania.
On the last day of nominations, INLD and Gopal Kanda’s Haryana Lokhit Party formed an alliance, potentially benefiting Arjun Chautala. In the 2019 Assembly elections, Gopal Kanda’s brother Gobind Kanda contested against Ranjit Singh, securing 34,394 votes and finished second. Singh won the election with 53,825 votes in his kitty as an Independent candidate. The INLD-HLP-BSP alliance has made the contest tougher for Ranjit Singh, who is likely to face a formidable challenge.
Before 2019, Ranjit Singh contested twice from Rania on a Congress ticket but lost both times. In 2009, he lost to Krishan Kamboj, and in 2014 to Ram Chandar Kamboj. After being denied a ticket by the Congress in 2019, Ranjit Singh turned a rebel and won as an Independent.
The Congress has fielded journalist Sarva Mitra Kamboj and the BJP Shishpal Kamboj.
Uchana Kalan: A whole new chapter of legacy contests
Deepender Deswal
The high-profile Uchana Kalan constituency in Jind district is set to witness a keen contest between the fourth generations of two prominent political families of Haryana — former Deputy Chief Minister and sitting MLA Dushyant Chautala is pitted against former MP Brijendra Singh. The entry of BJP’s Devender Atri, a Brahmin candidate and a resident of Kahsoon village in the segment, has made it a triangular contest.
Facing anti-incumbency, it would be a challenging task for JJP leader Dushyant to retain his seat. The Congress has fielded former Union minister Birender Singh’s son Brijendra Singh, who had won the Hisar Lok Sabha seat as a BJP candidate in 2019. The father-son duo shifted to the Congress before the recent Lok Sabha polls.
Dushyant had defeated Brijendra’s mother Prem Lata, who was contesting on a BJP ticket, by 47,000 votes in the 2019 Assembly polls. Five years earlier, in 2014, Prem Lata, fielded by the BJP, had defeated Dushyant, then in the INLD, by about 7,000 votes.
The intense political rivalry between the families started in 2009 when former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala decided to contest from Uchana Kalan and defeated sitting MLA Birender Singh, then in the Congress, by 621 votes. Birender has represented Uchana Kalan in the Assembly five times.
Brijendra, who resigned from the IAS to take a plunge into politics, is the great-grandson of Sir Chhotu Ram, an iconic farmer leader of the pre-Independence era. Dushyant is the son of former MLA Ajay Chautala, grandson of Om Prakash Chautala and great-grandson of former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal.
Dushyant is banking on his five years’ work in the Uchana Kalan segment. “I have been able to do so much for the development of the constituency and for the entire state during my tenure as Deputy CM. People will ensure JJP’s victory,” he says.
Brijendra claims his real challenger is the BJP candidate. “Though I am happy he (Dushyant) has opted to contest from here, people are upset with him due to political backstabbing of the mandate after the 2019 Assembly poll results and allegations of corruption,” he says.
Farmer activist Azad Palwan and a woman activist, Sikkim Nain, who have been raising issues related to farmers and the molestation of a student by the principal of a government school, have also joined the electoral fray as Independents.
Ateli: Rao stronghold, third generation takes shot
Sumedha Sharma
A small town in Mahendergarh district, Ateli has attained centrestage in this election. The Assembly constituency in the Ahirwal region, with around two lakh voters, is witnessing the electoral debut of the third generation of the powerful Rao clan.
Fielded from the family stronghold by the BJP for the October 5 polls, Arti Rao is the daughter of six-time MP Rao Inderjit Singh and granddaughter of former Chief Minister Rao Birender Singh. The clan traces its roots to freedom fighter Rao Tula Ram.
For Arti, victory is far from assured. After the strong resistance to her candidature from within the party, her opponents are targeting her for being an outsider who is oblivious to the issues that the residents of the constituency face.
“The entire Ahirwal is my home,” counters Arti, “those targeting me should know that Ateli is part of Ahirwal and Mahendergarh. While preparing for this debut for the last 10 years with the BJP, I have been the most active here not just as a politician, but a resident. I know this place like the back of my hand, its problems, its issues and its expectations.”
Her grandfather Rao Birender Singh is known across political circles for coining the term ‘Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram’, referring to political representatives switching loyalties with alacrity.
Arti’s father Rao Inderjit Singh has emerged as the tallest BJP leader in south Haryana, though there’s a constant buzz that the saffron party has not done justice by allotting him a berth in the Union ministry that fails to measure up to his status.
To allegations of nepotism and being a poster girl of dynastic politics, Arti says, “I am a national shooter and like any other political leader, have spent a decade working as a party worker on the ground. I am proud of my family’s legacy of serving people and lucky to take it forward, but that doesn’t define me. None of those in the fray have toiled for this segment like I have.”
In addition to battling the BJP government’s anti-incumbency, she faces a strong opponent in Santosh Yadav, a former BJP MLA. The former Deputy Speaker in the Vidhan Sabha filed her nomination papers as an Independent candidate after being denied a ticket by the BJP from Ateli. It would be Yadav’s fifth Assembly election and first as an Independent. She had emerged victorious in 2014 but lost in 2019.
The Congress has fielded Anita Yadav (60), a three-time MLA and former Chief Parliamentary Secretary.
Tosham: The grand rivalry of Bansi Lal’s grandkids
Deepender Deswal
With both the BJP and the Congress fielding members of the family of former Chief Minister Bansi Lal, the Tosham Assembly segment in Bhiwani district has turned into a battle royale between estranged cousins.
BJP’s Shruti Choudhry, Bansi Lal’s grand-daughter and a former Congress MP, will face the challenge posed by his grandson, Anirudh Chaudhry of the Congress.
The two have joined the electoral fray in the family stronghold for the first time. The contest has turned into a battle for supremacy within two factions of the Bansi Lal family to claim his political legacy.
Of the late Bansi Lal’s two sons, Ranbir Mahendra and Surender Singh, Mahendra got politically estranged from his father. Surender always stood by him but died in a chopper crash in 2005.
Shruti’s mother Kiran Choudhry (wife of the late Surender Singh) recently became a Rajya Sabha member of the BJP after she quit the Congress soon after the Lok Sabha polls. Kiran Choudhry is a four-time MLA from Tosham, having won on a Congress ticket. “She is a determined and strong-willed woman who was calling the shots in Tosham when she was in the Congress. Anirudh, son of Ranbir Mahendra, has thrown in his hat with the backing of former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. The winner of the contest will obviously claim to be the one who carries forward Bansi Lal’s political legacy,” says a political expert, adding that this is the reason that the tussle is going to be bitter.
Anirudh says everybody has the right to contest even though his cousin is the main opponent. “I have no problem facing her. She is my sister and it will be a good contest,” he says, adding that he had made a commitment to himself to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps.
Kiran Choudhry, however, refuses to call it a contest between bhai and behan. “It should be called a contest between rivals,” she stated in an interaction with the media recently. Shruti claims she would work to fulfil the aspirations of people and follow in Bansi Lal’s footsteps.
Tosham has 2.2 lakh voters.
