Chandigarh:

The rebellion and discontent faced by the BJP after it released its list of candidates for the Haryana Assembly polls have now come to haunt the Congress, with a senior leader resigning and announcing that he will contest as an Independent a day after the party unveiled its first list.

The Congress’ first list of 32 names included former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda from Garhi Sampla-Kiloi, new entrant Vinesh Phogat from Julana and state unit chief Udai Bhan from Hodal. Sitting MLA Rajinder Singh Joon was renominated from Bahadurgarh, prompting a rerun of a rebellion that the constituency had seen in 2019 as well.

Senior leader Rajesh Joon met his supporters and announced that he had resigned from all posts in the Congress and would be contesting from the seat as an Independent. 

“The Congress leadership cheated me. I was promised a ticket but the promise was not kept. I will become an MLA by polling double the number of votes that the Congress candidate gets,” Mr Joon said. 

Rajesh Joon and another Congress leader had also rebelled against the party after Rajinder Singh Joon was given the ticket in 2019. They had submitted their nominations from the Bahadurgarh Assembly constituency and had withdrawn them only after Bhupinder Singh Hooda had intervened. 

Buoyed after winning 5 of the 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana in the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress will hope that the discontent in the party does not hurt its chances of dislodging the BJP from a Hindi heartland state it has ruled since 2014. The party’s central leadership has also faced pushback after senior leader Rahul Gandhi pushed for a tie-up with the AAP to avoid the division of votes. 

While an in-principle agreement regarding an alliance had been announced on Wednesday, there appears to be a stalemate, with the AAP seeking 10 seats and the Congress willing to give up only five to seven. 

BJP’s Troubles

The BJP has also had to face dissent from its leaders after it released its first list of 67 names on Wednesday.  Energy Minister Ranjit Chautala and MLA Lakshman Napa quit the party after being denied tickets. While Mr Chautala has said he will contest as an Independent, Mr Napa announced that he will join the Congress.

Mr Chautala is the son of Chaudhary Devi Lal Chaudhary, one of Haryana’s tallest leaders, who served as chief minister twice and was also a deputy prime minister.

BJP MLA Shashi Ranjan Parmar had also burst into tears after his name had not featured on the list. 

Voting will take place in all 90 seats in Haryana on October 5 and counting will be held on October 8.

New Delhi:

Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini today made it clear there will be no change in the candidates’ list announced by the BJP for the assembly election scheduled on October 5.

The Chief Minister’s comment comes after the BJP announced its first list of 67 candidates, following which the party faced protests from minister Ranjit Singh Chautala and MLA Lakshman Dass Napa, who were not given tickets. Both have resigned.

Mr Saini said everyone should put to rest any speculation about tweaks in the candidates’ list. He said everyone wants a ticket, but the “lotus” can be given to only one person.

“It is natural for ticket-seekers to get angry. But they will be persuaded,” the Chief Minister said at a party meeting in Rohtak.

Haryana Energy and Jails Minister Ranjit Chautala, 79, son of former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal, said he took a decision after a meeting with his supporters and will now enter the contest as an iIndependent.

Former minister Karan Dev Kamboj also stepped down as the state BJP’s Other Backward Classes (OBC) Morcha chief after he did not get a ticket.

Despite Mr Saini’s attempt to downplay the events, former minister Savitri Jindal, who had quit the Congress and joined the BJP in March, days after her son and industrialist Naveen Jindal had also joined the BJP, said she will fight from Hisar, even as an independent.

After quitting the party, Mr Napa met former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda at his house in Delhi, and later joined the Congress.

“No one has left the party… Karan Dev Kamboj and Lakshman Napa are our senior leaders… we will make them understand,” Mr Saini said.

The BJP is aiming for a hat-trick in Haryana, but faces a tough challenge from a resurgent Congress which is looking to cash in on the anti-incumbency factor.

Mr Saini is the BJP’s chief ministerial face for the assembly polls. The counting of votes for the elections to the 90-member assembly will take place on October 8.

In Gurugram, after Mukesh Sharma was announced as BJP candidate, party leader and aspirant Naveen Goyal revolted and resigned. Mr Goyal, state convener of the BJP’s business cell and head of its environment protection department, has now decided to contest as an independent.

Along with him, more than 150 party officials and workers announced they are leaving the party.

New Delhi:

The Congress and the BJP both face hiccups in finalising candidates for next month’s Haryana election, sources told NDTV Friday, days after the former began seat-sharing talks with the AAP, seeking a revival of the INDIA alliance that won five of 10 Lok Sabha seats in April-June.

As far as the Congress is concerned, as it was with seat-share talks with other opposition parties before the Lok Sabha election, there is disagreement between state and central leaders. Congress leaders in Haryana are unwilling to concede too many of Haryana’s 90 seats.

Differences have also emerged, sources said, over which seats the AAP can get; some of those identified by Arvind Kejriwal’s party are those to which the Congress’ influential former Chief Minister Bhupinder Hooda expects to nominate his loyalists.

The Congress and the AAP announced an ‘in-principle’ deal on Wednesday.

This was after Rahul Gandhi urged his party to form an alliance with the AAP to guard against the division of votes. Mr Gandhi has been clear that it will take a concerted effort by the opposition to defeat Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP, whether in central or state elections.

In early exchanges the AAP wanted 10 seats but the Congress would offer five to seven only, with another likely to go to Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, another INDIA member.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha election in Haryana the Congress contested nine seats (and won five) and left the tenth to the AAP, but Mr Kejriwal’s party failed to wrest Kurukshetra from the BJP.

Sources said the Congress has pointed to this, and that wrestlers Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia will contest on its tickets, to claim it has the best chance of defeating the BJP.

BJP’s Haryana Election Issues

The BJP, meanwhile, faces internal squabbles after naming a first list of 67 candidates, with Jails Minister Ranjit Chautala and MLA Lakshman Napa quitting after being denied tickets.

Mr Chautala has said he will contest as an independent candidate, while Mr Napa met Congress leader Hooda at his residence and said he would join that party.

READ | Denied Haryana Poll Tickets, BJP Minister And MLA Quit Party

Ranjit Chautala is the son of Devi Lal Chaudhary, one of the state’s tallest and most respected political leaders, who was also twice Chief Minister and served as Deputy Prime Minister.

Mr Chautala was hoping to contest from Rania – the seat he won in 2019 as an independent but quit to join the BJP and contest the Hisar Lok Sabha seat, which he lost.

The BJP fielded Shishpal Kamboj instead.

Meanwhile, Karan Dev Kamboj has resigned as chief of the BJP’s OBC Morcha state unit after also being denied a ticket. “Perhaps the BJP does not need loyalists anymore,” he said, taking a swipe at the party for giving tickets to former rival leaders who have recently joined the party.

READ | On BJP’s Haryana 1st List – Jail Officer Who Gave Ram Rahim 6 Paroles

A significant name in the BJP’s first list is former prison official Sunil Sangwan – had who granted Dera Sacha Sauda chief and rape convict Ram Rahim parole a staggering six times.

When Is Haryana Election?

The Haryana Assembly election will be held on October 5. 

The election was first scheduled for October 1 but it was deferred by the Election Commission to honour the voting rights and traditions of the Bishnoi community, for whom a festival – the centuries-old Asoj Amavasya festival in remembrance of Guru Jambeshwar – is on October 2.

READ | Haryana Poll Dates Revised To October 5, Counting 3 Days Later

The Bishnois represent a sizeable voting community in at least three districts of the state.

Therefore, results for the Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir elections – the first in the former state since 2014 – will now be announced on October 8 instead of October 4, the poll body said. 

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New Delhi:

Senior Congress leader and former Union minister Kumari Selja — seen as a contender for the top job in Haryana in case of a Congress victory in the coming assembly election — told NDTV today that there are “always possibilities in the country”. But she amended that comment with “it is the decision of the high command only after the elections”.

The Congress, she told NDTV in an exclusive interview, is not only strong, but is in a very strong position. “I am confident that we will form government with a very good majority,” she added.

But this time, Kumari Selja and Randeep Singh Surjewala, two of the most prominent faces of the party, have not been given ticket for Haryana.

With an eye on the Lok Sabha numbers, the Congress has made it clear that said that no MP will be given ticket for the state election this time.
Kumari Selja said she has “already said that it is our wish that we contest the election”. But the final decision in this too, lies with the “high command”, she said.

“If we take our decision, then it is not right…. It will be their decision based on what seems politically right, what message to give in the state… the high command will decide taking all that into consideration,” she added.

Asked about her not getting along with the party’s veteran leader and former Chief Minister Bhupinder Hooda, Kumari Selja said, “Getting along or not — this does not happen in politics”.

“In politics, everyone has their own way of working, and our party is a democratic party. It is not the BJP or a regional party… There is room for everyone here and everyone is respected, everyone can put forward their own views,” she added.

Chandigarh:

A day after Haryana BJP president Mohan Lal Badoli floated his name as a candidate from Ladwa for the upcoming Haryana Assembly polls, Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini on Saturday said it is the BJP’s “parliamentary board” which decides who contests from where.

“I am the MLA from Karnal…BJP parliamentary board will decide from where I have to contest. No one, no matter how big, can claim he will fight from a particular seat. I am a chief minister, even I cannot claim from where I will fight,” Mr Saini told reporters here.

The Chief Minister made the remark responding to reporters’ query on Mr Badoli’s Friday announcement.

On Friday, Mr Saini during his roadshow in Karnal was asked by reporters who the party’s candidate from Karnal would be, to which he responded, “I will contest the election from Karnal also, why are you worried?” Asked if he would file nominations from two seats, Mr Saini evaded a direct reply. “I will fight the election from Karnal,” he said.

Earlier on Friday, Mr Badoli, when asked by reporters from where the Chief Minister would contest the elections, had said, “The Chief Minister will contest from Ladwa.” Meanwhile, Mr Saini again hit out at Congress’s ‘Haryana Maange Hisab’ campaign and accused it of spreading lies.

He also said he had asked ten questions to Congress on various issues, but did not receive their answers.

Congress made “tall promises” to the people of Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh, but “deceived” them once they came to power. “Lie is in their DNA,” the CM said.

He also asked the Congress to tell how many promises it fulfilled between 2005 and 2014 when the party was in power. “We have fulfilled our promises 100 per cent,” he claimed in the next breath.

He alleged that there was a “full stop” on development in Haryana during the Congress rule, whereas the BJP in the past ten years has worked “non-stop”.

Mr Saini said things have come to such pass for Congress that there are no takers for its election tickets.

He also made a mention of the Election Commission recently barring authorities in the state from announcing the results of ongoing recruitment for police constables and teachers till the election was over.

The commission gave the order taking note of a complaint by Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh.

“Haryana Staff Selection Commission has prepared results for 24,000 jobs. If the Congress party ‘Bharti roko gang’ and Jairam Ramesh withdraw their application from the Election Commission then we will immediately start recruitment,” he said.

Mr Saini also cautioned the people of Jammu and Kashmir, which is also going to polls, against the NC-Congress alliance.

He asked Congress leaders, including former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Hooda, to clear their stand on the reinstatement of Article 370, as being proposed by ally National Conference.

Meanwhile, the Election Commission on Saturday deferred the Haryana assembly poll date to October 5 from October 1, saying the decision was taken keeping in mind a centuries-old festival of the Bishnoi community.

The counting of votes for Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana assembly polls will now be held on October 8 instead of October 4, the poll body said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

Home Minister Amit Shah lashed out at the Congress Tuesday, accusing the party of having “snatched reservation from backward classes in Karnataka and giving it to Muslims”.

Mr Shah’s  comment was made in Haryana, which will hold an Assembly election later this year.

“If the Congress forms the government, they will do the same in Haryana too…” he said at a Backward Classes Samman Sammelan.He said the Congress had always been against the backward classes, raking up a row – the issue of reservations to Muslims – that was big news ahead of the 2024 election.

In an all-out and fierce attack on his rival, Mr Shah referred to the 1957 Kaka Kalelkar Commission report and pointed out the Congress had delayed implementing its recommendations. “In 1980, Indira Gandhi shelved the Mandal Commission. When it was introduced in 1990, Rajiv Gandhi opposed OBC reservation…”

Mr Shah declared that it was only in 2014, after Narendra Modi became Prime Minister for the first time that there was a “government of Dalits, poor, and backward people”.

He made reference to the fact 27 of 71 cabinet ministers are from backward classes. “I want to assure you we will not allow Muslim reservation in Haryana,” he declared.

That the comment came in Haryana is seen as significant, since Nayab Singh Saini, who replaced ML Khattar as Chief Minister ahead of the general election, is from the OBCs.

And last month Mr Saini said reservation for backward classes in Group-A and Group-B government jobs, currently at 15 per cent, would be increased to 27 per cent.

This, he said, would be “in line with the central government’s policy”.

The Congress has hit back strongly, directing Mr Shah to Andhra Pradesh, where the Telugu Desam Party of Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu is in power. The TDP is an ally of the BJP; its 16 Lok Sabha MPs are essential for Mr Modi to remain in power after the BJP’s less than stellar poll result, in which it finished 32 seats of outright majority.

The reference was to the TDP government’s reservation policy for Muslims, who form a crucial vote bank in the state. Mr Naidu has offered no indication he will scrap this.

In fact, his son Nara Lokesh told NDTV last month, “It (reservation for Muslims) has been going around for the last two decades. We stand by it. We intend to continue it.”

“It’s a fact minorities continue to suffer and that they have the lowest per capita income. As a government, it is our responsibility to bring them out of poverty. So whatever decisions I take are not for appeasement, but to bring them out of poverty.”

During the election campaign the Muslim reservation issue was a major bone of contention, particularly after Mr Modi’s comment in Rajasthan’s Banswara.

Referring to plans in the Congress’ manifesto for an “economic and institutional report” as part of a national caste survey, and to a remark by his predecessor, Dr Manmohan Singh, the PM said, “Congress says they will calculate gold with mothers and sisters… and distribute that property…. that Muslims have first right on all resources…”

The remarks provoked an angry response from the Congress, which accused Mr Modi of lying to divert voters’ attention from genuine issues. The party pointed out its manifesto made no such claim, and Mr Gandhi explained the survey and its components were an “important step” in understanding how sections of the society developed and what is needed to ensure equality.

The party also complained to the Election Commission. A notice was sent to BJP chief JP Nadda – and his Congress counterpart Mallikarjun Kharge, after a complaint was filed against Mr Gandhi.

Amit Shah is on his second visit to poll-bound Haryana.

The state was won by the BJP and its then ally, former ex-Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala’s JJP in the last election. It was swept by the BJP in the two previous Lok Sabha election; the party won all 10 seats. But in the 2024 poll the Congress made a strong comeback, winning five seats.

New Delhi:

Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini today gave a cryptic message amid a potential crisis in the BJP government after three independent MLAs announced they have withdrawn support to the BJP government.

The three MLAs – Sombir Sangwan, Randhir Gollen and Dharampal Gonder – claimed the Haryana government is in a minority now and the state elections should be held soon. They said they will support the Congress in the election.

Mr Saini, however, dismissed the situation as nothing alarming.

“When I heard about it, I knew that moment the Congress is trying to fulfil their wishes. Everyone has a wish,” Mr Saini said.

“But the people know. They know the Congress has got nothing to do with the wishes of people, but only with fulfilling their personal wishes,” he said.

The Chief Minister did not explain how the BJP plans to counter this new threat.

Congress leader and former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said the BJP has no right to continue in power in Haryana as the government is in minority now.

“Keeping in mind the sentiments of the public, the MLAs supported the Congress, thanks to all the three independents,” Mr Hooda told reporters.

“Along with the public, those who voted and supported BJP are unhappy with this government. The BJP should immediately dissolve the government and face the assembly elections,” the Congress leader said.

The three independent MLAs made the announcement at a press conference ion Rohtak in Mr Hooda and state Congress chief Udai Bhan’s presence.

“We have taken this decision on various issues including those related to farmers,” Mr Gonder said.

The state Congress chief said the present strength of the 90-member assembly is 88, of which the BJP has 40 members. “The BJP government earlier had the support of JJP MLAs and independents, but the JJP had also withdrawn support and now independents are leaving,” Mr Bhan said.

“Nayab Singh Saini government is now a minority government. He should resign as he does not have the right to stay even for a minute,” Mr Bhan said.