Haryana elections: A veteran woman BJP leader faces off with Congress, and angry farmers

Farmers questioning BJP candidate Santosh Sarwan during her poll campaign. (Special arrangement)

At Mohri village, Jasbir Singh questions: “When we were going to Delhi for our demands, why way was our blocked? Why were we fired upon?… teargas was used against us. What was our fault? Were we terrorists? As many as 200 policemen raided our houses and we were compelled to stay out of home for over one month. Why was this done?”

Sarwan replies patiently: “Bhai, I will reply to your questions one by one. I have already said you are the first citizen of this country. You ask these questions from the sitting MLA or sitting MP. Your sister (Sarwan) was neither an MLA nor an MP at that time. I regretted whatever happened that time…You are our annadata, first citizen, and honour of India.”

Sarwan, whose son is an IAS officer in Haryana, was elected from Mullana on a BJP ticket in 2014 but could not get a party ticket in the 2019 Assembly election. In 2019, Congress’s Varun Chaudhary won from Mullana. Varun was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Ambala seat and the Congress has fielded his wife Pooja Chaudhary, a law graduate, from Mullana, a Scheduled Caste-reserved seat. Varun’s father Phool Chand Mullana, the former president of the Haryana Congress, had won the Mullana seat in 1972, 1982, 1991 and 2005.

The Mullana constituency has 2.26 lakh voters in 172 villages. As per local estimates, there are around 80,000 voters each from the general caste and Scheduled Caste communities while the other voters are from the Other Backward Class (OBC) communities.