Haryana polls: Achhe din for turncoats in BJP 2nd list
The Bharatiya Janata Party declared its remaining list of 47 candidates for the Haryana assembly elections on Saturday, ensuring that turncoats who had joined the party recently were rewarded with a ticket and had achhe din in store.
The Bharatiya Janata Party declared its remaining list of 47 candidates for the Haryana assembly elections on Saturday, ensuring that turncoats who had joined the party recently were rewarded with a ticket and had achhe din in store.
More than 15 of the 47 candidates declared had hopped over to the BJP from the Congress and the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD). The Mullana (SC) BJP candidate, Santosh Sarwan, wife of former Haryana IAS officer ML Sarwan, was formerly in the Congress and was also minister in the government led by Bhajan Lal. Its candidates from Thanesar, Pehowa, Kalayat and Kaithal, namely Subhash Sudha, Jai Bhagwan Sharma, Dharampal Sharma and Rao Surender Singh had come from Congress.
The BJP’s candidate from Gharaunda, Harvinder Kalyan, had hopped from Congress, while former Congress MP from Sonepat, Jitender Malik, was given ticket from Ganuar, while Gohana ticket was given to Jai Singh Thekedar, who had joined BJP with Birender Singh and had contested recent Lok Sabha election on an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) ticket.
The BJP candidate from Jind, Surender Barwala, had remained MP on INLD ticket, Fatehabad candidate Swatantra Bala Chaudhry too was from INLD, Sunita Duggal, wife an Haryana Police officer Rajesh Duggal, was given ticket from Ratia, while from Baroda candidate Baljeet Singh Malik was a Gathwala khap leader.
Other turncoats who shifted from INLD included Pawan Beniwal (Ellenabad) and Abhay Singh Yadav (former IAS officer, who got ticket for Nangal Chaudhry) while INLD’s Dariyav Singh Rajoura had also shifted to Congress before getting ticket for Jhajjar (SC) seat.
Ram Ratan, who was given BJP ticket from Hodal (SC) too had shifted from Congress.
The ticket allocation also showed that none of the MPs who were seeking assembly tickets for their kin, were obliged.
However, Vandana Sharma, the sister of union mea sister Sushma Swaraj was given the Safidon ticket. Former Congress leader, Birender Singh who was seeking ticket from Jind or Kaithal has not been accommodated. His wife, Prem Lata has been fielded by the BJP from Uchana Kalan, Singh's home turf.
Gurgaon MP Rao Inderjit Singh who was seeking ticket for his daughter, Bhiwani-Mahendergarh MP Dharambir and Sonepat MP Ramesh Kaushik, who were seeking tickets for their respective brothers, were denied one while even the request of BJP MP from Ambala Rattan lal Kataria, who was seeking a ticket for his wife was turned down. Likewise, former BJP MP Sudha Yadav was also denied a ticket.
However, BJP which allocated 15 tickets to women (INLD has given to 11) also tried to accommodate candidates from all communities.
Prominent turncoats
From Congress:
Santosh Sarwan
Jitender Malik
J P Dalal
Subhash Sudha
Harvinder Kalyan
From INLD:
Surender Barwala
Dariyav Singh Rajoura
Pawan Beniwal
Abhay Singh Yadav
Swatantra Bala Choudhary
