Former CM, scion, in three-way fight

SONEPAT: A former chief minister, a turncoat and a rebel scion made Sonepat — one of the state’s 10 seats that went to the polls on Sunday —an exciting triangular contest in the ongoing general elections. According to the Voter Turnout app of the Election Commission of India, the seat saw 69.08% polling at 10 pm.

Candidates in the fray included two-time chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, a fourtime Member of Parliament from the Congress party, sitting MP Ramesh Kaushik, once a close aide of Hooda’s, who switched sides to contest as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate in 2014, and Digvijay Chautala, leader of the fledgling Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) formed recently after a split in the Chautala family, which saw patriarch Om Prakash Chautala (head of the Independent Lok Dal Party) expel son Ajay and grandsons, Digvijay and Dushyant.

Hooda looked at home in the constituency, which encompasses both Deswali and Bangar regions, but the election was a test of his political standing. Meanwhile, Kaushik’s political future in the BJP depended on the outcome of this contest. Chautala, whose brother Dushyant, contested as the JPP candi

date from Hisar, fought a prestige battle for his new party, an off-shoot of the INLD.

Hooda and Chautala, both Jats, fought for a share of over 670,000 Jat votes while Kaushik, a Brahmin, hoped to corner a major share of about 150,000 Brahmin votes.

Kaushik, who was a part of the Congress government under Hooda, and served as chief parliamentary secretary between 2005 and 2009, spoke of the air strikes and the need to have a strong Centre.

Hooda, on the other hand, focused on farmers’ crisis in the state.