So far, 25 ticket BJP candidates have applied for Baroda bypolls ticket from BJP: Dhankar
No claimants from JJP, the party’s ally from BJP which had agreed to field a joint candidate from the seat
A day after the BJP and its ally Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) decided to put up a joint candidate for the November 3 Baroda byelection, the state election committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party met in Sonepat on Saturday to discuss the probable candidate.
Talking to media after the meeting, OP Dhankar, the BJP’s Haryana unit chief, said that as many as 25 candidates have applied for the party’s ticket from the Baroda bypoll.
“In the meeting, we discussed the merits and demerits of each candidate. Now chief minister (CM) Manohar Lal Khattar and I will interact with the party’s central election committee to select the candidate for the byelection. The final decision will be taken by the central poll panel. No candidate from the Jannayak Janta party had applied for the ticket and the joint candidate will be from BJP. Wrestler Babita Phogat did not apply for the ticket,” he added.
Meanwhile, CM Khattar slammed the Congress, stating that it had nothing for the Baroda constituency since the since inception of Haryana.
Addressing a press conference during his visit to Gohana, Khattar said, “I want to tell former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda that he failed to carry out any development work in this rural constituency. But our government is committed to improve the condition of Baroda. In the last six years, we spent ₹550 crore for development projects in Baroda.”
“The former MLA Sri Krishan Hooda (who passed away earlier this year) was a good human being but not an active legislator,” he added.
The Haryana CM also said that pending work on the Sonepat-Jind highway via Gohana has already started and works for Kundli-Amritsar highway will start soon.
“Since 2009, Bhupinder Hooda has been seeking votes from Baroda voters in the name of bringing back power in the area but he kept power at his home by sending his son Deepender Hooda to Rajya Sabha and ignoring other Congress leaders,” the CM added.
Commenting on recently enacted three legislations, Khattar said these laws are beneficial to farmers and the Congress party is trying to mislead the farmers.
“Under this law, contract farming will be allowed in the state while ensuring the minimum support price for the produce. And these laws will give farmers two options to sell their produce. They can opt for whichever fetches them more money. The crop procurement is going smoothly across the state and farmers will get payment of their produce by next week,” he added.
The Baroda assembly seat fell vacant after the death of Congress MLA Sri Krishan Hooda, who represented the rural constituency in 2009, 2014 and 2019. The Indian National Lok Dal won the seat from 1977 to 2005.
The saffron party’s nominee has never won from the Baroda constituency, which has 54 villages. Half the voters here belong to the Jat community. In the 2019 assembly elections, Congress nominee Sri Krishan Hooda defeated wrestler-turned-politician Yogeshwar Dutt by 4,840 votes.
