BJP eyes hat-trick, Cong a comeback after a decade as Haryana votes on Saturday

Chandigarh, Oct 4 (PTI) The fate of Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Vinesh Phogat of the Congress besides JJP’s Dushyant Chautala and 1027 other candidates will be decided on Saturday as elections to the 90-member Haryana assembly will be held with over 2 crore people eligible to vote.

The ruling BJP is eyeing a hat-trick of wins in the state while the Congress is hoping to make a comeback after a decade. Counting of votes will be held on October 8.

Haryana’s Chief Electoral Officer Pankaj Agarwal said 2,03,54,350 voters, including 8,821 centurions, are eligible to exercise their franchise and the voting will be held from 7 am to 6 pm.

A total of 1,031 candidates are contesting in all 90 assembly constituencies, including 101 women. Among these candidates, 464 are contesting as independent.

A total of 20,632 polling booths have been set up for voting, Agarwal said on Friday.

The key contesting parties in the fray are BJP, Congress, AAP, INLD-BSP and JJP-Azad Samaj Party.

The high-octane campaign came to an end Thursday evening. The BJP’s campaign was spearheaded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who addressed four rallies, where he attacked the Congress on several issues and said they kept every matter important for the country entangled, including the Ram temple issue.

He also said corruption runs in veins of the Congress and alleged it has “turned into a party of ‘dalals’ (middlemen) and ‘damad’ (son-in-law)”.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also addressed many public meetings where he asserted that a “Congress storm” is on its way in Haryana and his party would form the government which will be one for the poor and farmers, and a ‘mohabbat ki dukan’ will be opened in every corner of the state.

In the previous assembly polls in 2019, the BJP had won 40 seats, the Congress 31 and JJP 10.

The Congress has left the Bhiwani assembly seat for its INDIA bloc partner CPI(M) while the BJP is not contesting the Sirsa seat, from where Haryana Lokhit Party chief Gopal Kanda is seeking re-election.

Most seats are likely to see a direct fight between the BJP and the Congress.

Prominent among those in fray include Chief Minister Saini (Ladwa), Leader of Opposition Hooda (Garhi Sampla-Kiloi), INLD’s Abhay Singh Chautala (Ellenabad), JJP’s Dushyant Chautala (Uchana Kalan), BJP’s Anil Vij (Ambala Cantt), Capt Abhimanyu (Narnaund) and O P Dhankar (Badli), AAP’s Anurag Dhanda (Kalayat) and Congress’s Phogat (Julana).

From Tosham seat, former MP Shruti Choudhry of BJP and Anirudh Chaudhary, both cousins, are contesting.

From Dabwali, Devi Lal’s grandson Aditya Devi Lal, an INLD candidate, is taking on JJP’s Digvijay Singh Chautala, great grandson of the former deputy prime minister.

The BJP has fielded former chief minister late Bhajan Lal’s grandson Bhavya Bishnoi from Adampur segment in Hisar while its nominee from Ateli in Mahendragarh is Arti Rao, whose father Rao Inderjit Singh is a Union Minister.

Among the independent candidates include Savitri Jindal (Hisar), Ranjit Chautala (Rania) and Chitra Sarwara (Ambala Cantt).

Taking on Dushyant from Uchana is Congress’ Brijendra Singh, son of former Union minister Birender Singh.

A few rebels from both Congress and BJP have also entered the fray.

DGP Shatrujeet Kapur said Haryana Police is fully prepared to ensure free, fair and peaceful conduct of elections.

Over 30,000 police personnel and 225 paramilitary companies have been deployed.

Adequate police presence will be maintained at the polling booths and locations, among which 3,460 polling booths have been classified as critical, and 138 have been deemed vulnerable, necessitating additional security measures.

As many as 186 interstate and 215 intra-state checkpoints have been established, where police teams will monitor movements closely.

To maintain law and order and ensure compliance with the Model Code of Conduct, the state has also formed 507 flying squads, 464 static surveillance teams, and 32 quick response teams. Additionally, 1,156 patrolling parties are actively monitoring the situation, he said.

Agarwal said of the total voters, 1,07,75,957 are men, 95,77,926 are women, and 467 are transgenders.

There are 5,24,514 voters aged 18 to 19, and 1,49,142 voters with disabilities, out of which 93,545 are male, 55,591 are female, and 6 are transgenders.

A total of 2,31,093 voters are above the age of 85 years, comprising 89,940 males and 1,41,153 females.

Additionally, there are 8,821 voters aged over 100, including 3,283 males and 5,538 females. The total number of service voters are 1,09,217, with 1,04,426 males and 4,791 females.

Notably, the voter turnout recorded in 2019 assembly polls was around 68 per cent.

As many as 144 polling stations have been designated as model ones.

Apart from this, 115 polling stations will be entirely managed by women staff, 114 by youth employees, and 87 by persons with disabilities employees. Webcasting will be conducted at all polling stations on election day, Agarwal said.

He stated that including reserved units, a total of 27,866 Electronic Voting Machines (ballot units) will be used in these election.

Along with this, 24,719 control units and 26,774 VVPAT machines will be used during the election process. Voters can verify their vote on the VVPAT machine after casting it.

Voter assistance booths will be set up at polling stations, staffed by Booth Level Officers and officers, to assist voters in locating their polling booth number and serial number in the electoral roll.

However, in the outgoing Assembly, the strength of ruling BJP members was 41 (one seat was won in 2022 Adampur bypolls) including the Speaker, Congress 28, JJP 6, Haryana Lokhit Party and Indian National Lok Dal 1 member each, Independents 4, while 9 seats had fallen vacant.

Among the nine seats, while seven fell vacant as legislators across parties resigned after joining other outfits, Badshahpur seat is vacant after Rakesh Daulatabad, Independent MLA representing the seat died in May while Mulana seat is lying vacant after Congress’ Varun Chaudhary, who represented it, fought parliamentary polls and got elected from Ambala.

In 2019, the BJP formed the government with the support of JJP while most Independents had also extended support to it then. However, JJP’s post-poll tie-up with the BJP ended after the saffron party replaced Manohar Lal Khattar with Nayab Singh Saini as chief minister in March.