JJP’s first list: Dushyant Chautala, brother Digvijay Singh to contest Haryana Assembly polls

The Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram), which is contesting the Haryana polls for the first time, and is an ally of the JJP, aannounced four candidates: Ashok Kashyap (Jagadhari); Sohel (Sadhaura); Vinesh Gurjar (Sohna) and Harit Bainsla (Palwal). Chandrashekhar Azad, who founded the Aazad Samaj Party (ASP), is seeking to find a foothold for his party beyond Uttar Pradesh.

In the 2019 Assembly elections, Dushyant had defeated former Union minister Birender Singh’s wife Prem Lata, then the BJP candidate, in Uchana. Birender Singh is now in the Congress and the party is likely to field his son Brijendra Singh, a former Hisar MP, in the constituency this time around.

In Dabwali, from where Dushyant has been fielded, there could potentially be a contest among members of the Chautala clan. In 2019, the BJP fielded Dushyant’s uncle Aditya Devi Lal from the seat, but he had lost to the Congress’s Amit Sihag. Sihag’s father Dr K V Singh is the uncle of Ajay Chautala, who is Digvijay and Dushyant’s father. The Congress and the BJP are looking to repeat their candidates in Dabwali, sources said.

The JJP has repeated Amarjeet Dhanda, who is the only remaning non-Chautala JJP MLA, from Julana and has given a ticket to Rajdeep Phogat in Dadri. Phogat was elected from Dadri on an Indian National Lok Dal ticket in 2019 and was among the four INLD legislators who joined the JJP in 2018 after their party’s split.

The other 11 JJP candidates who have been given tickets are Dr Ravinder Dheen (Mulana); Rajkumar Bubka (Radaur); Krishan Bajigar (Guhla); Kuldeep Malik (Gohana); Engineer Dharampal Prajapat (Jind); Virender Chaudhary (Nalwa); Rajesh Bhardwaj (Tosham); Sunil Dujana Sarpanch (Beri); Aayushi Abhimanyu Rao (Ateli); Rameshwar Dyal (Bawal) and Satvir Tanwar (Hodel).

Among those fielded by Azad’s party, only Sohna candidate Vinesh Gurjar, 39, is a known face. And happens to be the senior state vice-president of the JJP. Gurjar told The Indian Express that the JJP and the ASP have fielded him for the poll battle this time based on “mutual understanding”.

In 2019, the JJP had won 10 of the 87 seats it contested and secured 14.9% of the vote share. It formed a post-poll alliance with the BJP, which got 40 seats and fell short of a majority.