The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Congress goes for a balancing act in list of Haryana nominees
FIVE YEARS after the BJP swept Haryana in the Lok Sabha elections, winning all 10 constituencies in the state, based on support from all major communities in the state, except Muslims, the Congress maintained the balance between all the influential castes in the state in its list of candidates released on Thursday.
The Congress is contesting nine of the Haryana constituencies while one, Kurukshetra, is with the AAP. The party, yet to announce its candidate from Gurugram, has given two tickets each to Jats, Dalits, and OBCS. One ticket each has been given to the Punjabi and Brahmin groups.
The candidates f rom the Scheduled Castes ( SCS) are Kumari Selja ( Sirsa) and Varun Chaudhary ( Ambala). Deepender Hooda ( Rohtak) and Jai Prakash ( Hisar) are the Jats on the list while the two OBC candidates are Rao Dan Singh ( Bhiwani- Mahendragarh) and Mahendra Pratap ( Faridabad). Satpal Brahmachari ( Sonipat) is the Bramhin nominee and Divyanshu Buddhiraja ( Karnal) i s the candidate f rom the Punjabi community.
Against the BJP’S Faridabad candidate Krishan Pal Gurjar, who is from the Gurjar community, the Congress has fielded Mahendra Pratap who is also a Gurjar. Rao Dan Singh who comes from the Ahir community is the party’s choice to take on the BJP’S Jat candidate Dharambir in Bhiwani.
In Sirsa and Ambala, which are SC- reserved seats, the BJP has fielded Ashok Tanwar and Banto Kataria.
Both Rohtak and Hisar are Jatdominated constituencies but have significant Punjabi and Brahmin communities. In Rohtak, the BJP’S Arvind Sharma, a Punjabi- Brahmin, will take on Deepender Hooda. Hisar will see a Jat versus Jat contest between BJP’S Ranjit Singh and Jai Prakash. In Sonipat, where the BJP has fielded Brahmin candidate Mohan Lal Badoli, the Congress has fielded Satpal Brahmachari who is also from the community.
In 2019, the Congress fielded four Jat candidates — Bhupinder Hooda in Sonipat, Deepender in Rohtak, Nirmal Singh in Kurukshetra and Shruti Choudhry in BhiwaniMahendragarh constituencies. Selja and Tanwar were the two candidates from Ambala and Sirsa. Both are now contesting against each other in Sirsa. Others included Bhavya Bishnoi in Hisar to cater to the Bishnoi vote bank; Avtar Singh Bhadana, a non- Jat in Faridabad; Kuldeep Sharma, a Punjabi in Karnal and Capt. Ajay Yadav in Gurgaon fielded to reach out tro Yadavs.
As per the 2011 Census, SCS constitute 20.1% of Haryana’s population while OBCS make up 40.94% of the population. The Jat community constitutes approximately 27% of the population.
In 2019, only Rohtak saw a close fight, with the BJP'S Arvind Sharma defeating Deepender Hooda by just 7,503 votes. The BJP won the others comfortably.