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Deepender, Selja, Khattar emerge biggest winners in Haryana
Deepender avenged his 2019 defeat at the hands of BJP’s Dr Arvind Kumar Sharma and trounced the BJP nominee by 3,45,298 votes, the highest victory margin in the state. In Sirsa (reserve seat), Kumari Selja put on the mat BJP’s Ashok Tanwar by 2,68,497 votes. Tanwar is a former Congressman who remained Haryana Congress president also.
When Congress fielded Rajya Sabha member Deepender Singh Hooda from the Rohtak Lok Sabha seat again and sent former Union minister Kumari Selja to contest Lok Sabha election from Sirsa, the faction-ridden Haryana Congress was unanimous about the bright prospects of the party in these two seats.
Therefore, what topped the priority of the spin doctors of the party was the size of the victory of these two candidates who are seen to be in the race to become chief minister if the Congress is voted back to power.
The assembly elections are due in Haryana in October this year.
Deepender avenged his 2019 defeat at the hands of BJP’s Dr Arvind Kumar Sharma and trounced the BJP nominee by 3,45,298 votes, the highest victory margin in the state.
In Sirsa (reserve seat), Kumari Selja put on the mat BJP’s Ashok Tanwar by 2,68,497 votes. Tanwar is a former Congressman who remained Haryana Congress president also.
The significance of Congress’ wins in Rohtak and Sirsa lies in the fact that in 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had won Rohtak by 7,503 votes while in Sirsa saffron party nominee (Sunita Duggal) had won by 3,22,918 votes.
Son of two-time chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Deepender (46) has won from Rohtak Lok Sabha seat in 2005, 2009 and 2014.
And Selja, 61, who has remained Rajya Sabha MP, is a former Haryana Congress chief and a former Union minister. She has also represented both Sirsa and Ambala (reserved constituencies) in Lok Sabha.
It is in this backdrop that victory of Deepender and Selja with huge margins is a big boost to the Congress in general and to these candidates in particular.
In the BJP camp, former chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, against whom the Congress had fielded a greenhorn youth Congress leader Divyanshu Budhiraja, won from the Karnal Lok Sabha seat by 2,32,845 votes.
In sharp contrast, BJP’s victory margin in Karnal in 2019 was 6,56,142 votes.
Observers say this dip in BJP’s victory margins is a testament to the palpable anti-incumbency prevailing against the party in Haryana.
Union minister Krishan Pal did not let the Congress breach his Faridabad fort and defeated his nearest rival of Congress’ Mahender Pratap Singh by 1,72,914
votes, while after trailing Union minister Rao Inderjit Singh defeated Raj Babbar of Congress in Gurugram by over 75,079 votes.
In a multi-corner contest that unfolded in Hisar, Congress nominee Jai Parkash outsmarted BJP and defeated Cabinet minister Ranjit Singh Chautala by over 63,381
votes. The Hisar debacle has left the BJP red-faced.
Also, steel tycoon Naveen Jindal scraped through and defeated Dr Sushil Gupta of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) by 29,021 votes in what was a nail-biting contest.
The BJP suffered another setback in Ambala where sitting Congress MLA Varun Chaudhry humbled Banto Kataria of the BJP by 49,036 votes. Kataria is the widow of former three-term Ambala MP Rattan Lal Kataria.
In yet another embarrassment to the BJP, its sitting MLA Mohan Lal Badoli suffered defeat at the hands of Satpal Brahamchari of Congress by 21,816 votes.
And in Bhiwani-Mahendergarh, the sitting BJP MP Dharambir Singh defeated Congress’ Rao Dan Singh, a sitting MLA, by 40,809 votes.
Another aspect of Congress’ good show is that the BJP had won all 10 seats in 2019 with victory margins ranging between three and over six lakhs. On Tuesday, the Congress not only bridged this massive gap but also went on to win five seats with either huge or comfortable victory margins, leaving the BJP red-faced.
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