Abhimanyu taking no chances in cliffhanger
NARNAUND:Five months back during the Lok Sabha elections, the predominant Jat voters of Narnaund assembly segment had ticked-off their MLA and Haryana finance minister Captain Abhimanyu.
Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) registered a massive win in eight assembly segments of the Hisar Lok Sabha seat, in Narnaund, the saffron party trailed by 3,030 votes. The verdict had set alarm bells ringing in the finance minister’s camp as this stunning stance of the voters, in spite of the pro-BJP wave in Haryana, reflected anti-Abhimanyu mood ahead of assembly elections.
Nearly 60% of voters of this segment are Jat, followed by Brahmin and Scheduled Castes spread across 59 villages.
Pitted against Abhimanyu, 51, a former army officer having strong business interests is Congress’ debutant Baljeet Sihag, 61, who is a government contractor and belongs to the Jat community.
But it is Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) nominee Ram Kumar Gautam, a Brahmin, who has been giving a sound hammering at the support base of Abhimanyu. Gautam, 73, is not a greenhorn. He had won as a BJP candidate from Narnaund in 2005 and contested the 2009 assembly election as a Congress candidate unsuccessfully.
Gautam has emerged BJP’s key rival at the hustings because in the 2014 assembly elections, he polled 34,756 votes even as he contested as an independent. Abhimanyu then polled 53,770 votes and won by a margin of 5,761 votes, while the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) candidate Raj Singh Mor bagged 48,009 votes.
Following the crippling blow the INLD suffered due to split in the party, its traditional Jat support base has shifted towards its offshoot, the JJP, being spearheaded by ex-Hisar MP Dushyant Chautala. For example, in the Lok Sabha elections, Dushyant as JJP nominee pocketed 56,007 votes from Narnaund assembly segment against 52,977 votes by the BJP nominee. “The Lok Sabha polls verdict was a wakeup call,” Atar Singh, a BJP activist at Lohari, said blaming the ghost of February 2016 Jat agitation for reservation as the only reason behind the anger among the Jats against Abhimanyu, who is the Jat face of the BJP.
According to Narnaund-based Krishan, an activist of khap panchayats, over 100 Jat youths are still languishing in jails on the charge of “burning Abhimanyu’s ancestral house in Rohtak”, and they hold him responsible for that.
“Prominent khap leaders had held meeting with Abhimanyu in Chandigarh in the presence of then director general of police. They wanted Abhimanyu to pardon the jailed youth of the ‘biradri’ and withdraw cases. But Abhimanyurefusedevenaskhap leaders told him that they too shared the agony of loss he suffered,” said Krishan.
Endorsing Krishan’s thoughts, Satvir Singh of Budana says: “There was no need for Abhimanyu to seek votes. He could have won while sitting even abroad because of the development he has undertaken in the segment. At the core of his political problems are his egoistic nature and refusal to accept khap leaders request to set free the jailed Jat youths.”
On October 17 during a rally at Lohari in which BJP’s Gurdaspur MP and Bollywood actor Sunny Deol was present, Abhimanyu repeatedly offered apology and urged people to let the bygones be bygones.
While seeking votes, Abhimanyu calls upon the villagers to support him, urging the gathering to “promise” that they would vote for him on October 21. The finance minister describes the developmental work he has undertaken in the segment as “unprecedented”.
“I am your Captain and you are my honour,” he tells voters at Narnaund, cautioning them not to make any mistake. Setting up four government colleges and as many ITIs, a 100-bed hospital, 10 health centres are among hosts of developmental works the firstterm MLA is credited for.
According to Ranbir Singh, a Congress worker sitting in party office at Narnaund, Abhimanyu “developed and transformed” the segment. “He is an elite Jat. He isn’t social. That’s the problem,” Singh says.
On the other hand, Rajinder Singh quips, JJP nominee Gautam is a motormouth and doesn’t know what to say.
At Masoodpur village, JJP’s Gautam makes meek attempts to demolish the development poll narrative of Abhimanyu.
And Congress’ debutant Sihag, who has about 200-acre agricultural land, has been banking on the support of Jat biradri to turn the tide in his favour. His trump card is that he hails from Sisai, the biggest village of Haryana having two Panchayats and about 17,000 Jat voters.
As a day is left for the polling, BJP, JJP and Congress workers made last-ditch efforts before the campaigning concluded on Saturday.
A nail-biting contest is undoubtedly on the cards in Narnaund assembly segment.