Sure of retaining citadels, Khattar, Hooda cover state

KARNAL/ ROHTAK: Chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar and his predecessor, Bhupinder Singh Hooda — the two bigwigs of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress — have left the campaigning for their respective assembly seats of Karnal and Garhi-Sampla Kiloi to their supporters. Instead, both are living up to their reputations of being prime campaigners of their respective parties, and are canvassing for party nominees.

Both have been covering six to eight assembly seats every day for the elections slated for October 21. Saturday is the last day of campaigning.

“I travel by road when it gets dark and keep my evening poll meetings close-by,’’ said the CM, who generally avoids rituals like garlanding by party worker to save time. Khattar, whose recent interview in Tamil went viral, tries to connect with the people by talking about the bachelor status of his party colleagues and himself. “There was a time when elected representatives minted money for themselves and their relatives. We have nothing to do with this,” he said at Gohana’s Titu dharamshala. He also stuck to the BJP’s nationalism narrative.

Former CM Hooda. relies more on his appeal. He does not forget to express gratitude to the gatherings for coming out in “big numbers”. “I was very happy at the number of people who gathered at Narnaund earlier today. But this crowd is much big,’’ he told a gathering at Tohana. “All of you are sweating in this heat. Your sweat is like sacred Ganges water for me. It will not go waste,” he added.

“The BJP provided a non-performing government. They just did event management. Ask them whether they fulfilled even a single promise they made in their 2014 party manifesto,” he said. HTC