INLD names Virender Rana as its candidate from Gurugram

GURUGRAM: After announcing its candidate in all the nine seats, the Indian National Lok Dal on Sunday evening announced the 10th and the final candidate from the largest Lok Sabha of Haryana –Gurugram.

Much to the surprise of pundits, the INLD has fielded Virender Rana from Gurugram. Rana is a party worker of INLD and has been associated in building the base of the party in Gurugram.

It was earlier expected that taking, however, of Meo Muslim votes that account 20 percent of the vote share, the party will field a candidate from Nuh. In 2014, INLD had fielded Zakir Hussain who had come distant second to Rao Inderjit Singh.

Interestingly INLD has never won the Gurugram Lok Sabha seat. The position of the party has believed to be further weakened after differences in the Chautala family led to the party being split.

Eventually, the faction led by the elder brother Ajay Chautala and his sons formed the Jan Nayak Janta Party. Interestingly even the JJP will be contesting from the Gurugram Lok Sabha seat.

The Ahirs form the maximum percentage of voters at 17 per cent which is then followed by Meo Muslims at 13 per cent, the other voters in the belt are Jats, Punjabis, Brahmins, Baniyas and Gurjars. The significance of Gurgaon Lok Sabha seat can be gauged from the fact that in 2014 polls there were four major parties namely BJP, INLD, AAP and that were in the fray.

However, Rao Inderjit won handsomely with 6,44,780 with 48 per cent of votes. Zakir Hussain, a prominent leader from Mewat came second with 28 per cent of votes having a total of 3,70,058 votes.