Wrong ticket allocation to blame for Congress defeat on Bhiwani-Mahendragarh seat: Kiran

Deepender Deswal

Hisar, June 8

Congress candidate Rao Dan Singh’s defeat from the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh Lok Sabha constituency has stirred a row within the party with Tosham MLA Kiran Choudhary finding flaws in the candidate selection process. Dan Singh lost to BJP’s Dharambir Singh by 41,510 votes.

The Congress candidate had lost from his home booth where he got only votes of his family members in own Assembly segment Mahendragarh, which he had represented four times, and three other Assembly segments falling in his home district Mahendragarh, Kiran told The Tribune.

The former minister said this had happened despite massive anti-incumbency against the ruling BJP in Haryana. “Apparently, it was arrogance that led to the party’s defeat despite the fact that there has been positive political vibes across the state for the Congress,” she claimed.

Kiran said that there was strategic miscalculation in the selection of the candidates for the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh and Gurugram Lok Sabha constituencies. She claimed that her daughter and former MP Shruti Choudhary would have won the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh seat by an empathic margin had she been given the ticket.

“We were never called to party meetings and were never involved in the campaign. This despite the fact that I am the Congress MLA from Tosham and Shruti is the working president of the state Congress,” she said. “I had brought the matter to the notice of the party high command during campaigning,” she added.

About Dan Singh’s performance in his home constituency Mahendragarh, where he lost by 4,840 votes, Kiran said it was shocking that the Congress nominee trailed in his own Assembly constituency and even in his home booth.

“The poll data indicates that Rao Dan Singh, who belongs to Mahendragarh district, has lost in all four Assembly constituencies of the district. However, he led in three of the five Assembly segments in Bhiwani and Charkhi Dadri districts,” she added.

Kiran recalled that Shruti had trailed in the Tosham Assembly segment by 36,000 votes during the 2019 Lok Sabha poll when she was the Congress candidate. “But still, Congress workers in Tosham covered this deficit to a major extent and reduced this loss margin to 8,063 votes. Thus, I can’t be blamed for the defeat,” she said.

Kiran had not campaigned for Rao Dan Singh in the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh segment though she went to Sirsa district to campaign for Kumari Selja. She is close to Selja and Randeep Surjewala, while it was believed that former Chief Minister Bhupinder Hooda had lobbied for ticket for Dan Singh.