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Keen contest on cards for Adampur bypoll on Thursday
According to the Hisar district administration, as many as 180 booths have been set-up, including one Sakhi and two model booths for the Adampur bypoll
: A total of 1.71 lakh voters will exercise their franchise in the high-stakes Adampur by-poll on Thursday that will witness the scion of the Bhajan Lal family trying to secure his family bastion in a close contest with the Congress and other parties.
According to the Hisar district administration, as many as 180 booths have been set-up, including one Sakhi and two model booths.
“Voting will start at 7 am in the morning and continue till 6 pm. As many as 22 candidates are in the fray. Mock poll will be conducted before the voting and three votes will be cast for each candidate in the mock poll,” said an election official.
The bypoll was necessitated after Kuldeep Bishnoi resigned as a Congress MLA from the Adampur assembly seat and switched to BJP.
The BJP has pitted Kuldeep Bishnoi’s son Bhavya Bishnoi, who had lost his security deposit as Congress candidate in the 2019 parliamentary polls from Hisar. The Congress has put its weight behind former union minister Jai Parkash, who is considered to be close to leader of opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
Litmus test for Hooda, Bishnoi
According to political experts and locals, the bypoll is expected to see a direct contest between BJP nominee Bhavya Bishnoi and Congress’ Jai Parkash while INLD has fielded Kurda Ram Nambardar and Aam Aadmi party (AAP) has given the ticket to Satinder Singh.
The bypoll is a litmus test for Hooda and state Congress chief Udai Bhan as most of the senior party leaders remained away from the campaign. The results of the by-poll will depict the popularity of Hooda outside the Deswali belt and Udai Bhan’s influence over SC voters.
The bypoll is a battle of honour for former Adampur MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi as this constituency is considered to be his family’s stronghold and they have been undefeated from the seat for the last 54 years. A win from here will underscore Bishnoi’s hold in this Bagri belt seat and BJP’s tally will reach to 41. This is the third bypoll in Haryana after the BJP-LJP alliance formed the government in the state in 2019. The alliance had lost both the previous bypolls in Baroda and Ellenabad. The ruling alliance’s performance will also be evaluated by the voters.
Congress banking on Jat voters, BJP eyeing non-Jats
The Congress and Hooda were eyeing Jat and SC voters, while BJP nominee Bhavya is banking heavily on non-Jat voters. This constituency has 1.71 lakh voters, of which nearly 52,000 voters are Jats and 28,000 Bishnoi voters. Congress candidate Jai Parkash had lost to Kuldeep Bishnoi from this seat in 2009 assembly polls by a margin of 6,015 votes in a head-to-head contest. Apart from Jats,
Congress and Hooda have more expectations from the SC community.
Udai Bhan had tried to consolidate SC votes as he claimed in his speeches that Bishnoi had left Congress after a ‘dalit’ was made state chief of the party.
Bishnoi’s family has been representing this seat since 1972. Bhan said the results will depict his popularity as state Congress chief and the same will give a befitting reply to Kuldeep Bishnoi, who questioned his popularity when the former was elevated as party’s state president.
BJP, Cong train guns at each other
In the entire election campaigning, BJP leaders stressed that Congress candidate Jai Parkash was an outsider as he belongs to Kaithal district and he never returned to Adampur after losing the 2009 assembly election.
However, the Congress leaders claimed that Kuldeep Bishnoi and his son Bhavya Bishnoi spent most of their time abroad and it was very difficult for voters to reach out to them.
On Tuesday at the Adampur rally, Bishnoi said, “many of the voters can be unhappy with me, Renuka (wife) and son Bhavya. It’s my humble request not to show your anger while casting the vote. You might be unhappy with us but I have resigned from the MLA post to improve the condition of Adampur.”
