2024 Lok Sabha poll: Congress’ stalwarts missing from list of applicants seeking ticket to take on BJP in Haryana

The candidates include a maximum of 79 ticket seekers for the Sonipat Lok Sabha constituency and a minimum of three for the Rohtak Lok Sabha constituency.

Deepak Babaria, party affairs in-charge for Haryana, told The Indian Express other than a couple of seats, “there is a lot of enthusiasm among the party workers and leaders on all other seats”.

“It is a healthy competition and the party workers are staking their claim to contest. We are having a screening committee meeting on February 13, after which the recommendations shall be sent to the party high command. The final meeting is expected to take place in New Delhi on the 15th or 16th of this month and then the candidates shall be announced,” said Babaria.

About the stalwarts missing from the list of candidates who have applied, Babaria said, “The senior leaders sometimes feel that it is the party that should invite them to contest. There is nothing more to it. The party will soon announce the final list of candidates”.

Interestingly, in the list of 299 ticket seekers compiled till February 7 — the last date fixed by the party for submission of applications — none of the candidates who had contested the Lok Sabha elections in 2019 have applied.

The single exception to this is former Member of Parliament Shruti Choudhary, the daughter of Congress’ senior leader and Tosham’s MLA Kiran Choudhry. Shruti, who is also among four working presidents of the Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee, has applied to contest from the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh Lok Sabha constituency. Besides her, there are only four ticket seekers who have applied.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Kumari Selja contested from Ambala, Nirmal Singh from Kurukshetra, Ashok Tanwar from Sirsa, Bhavya Bishnoi from Hisar, Kuldeep Sharma from Karnal, Bhupinder Singh Hooda from Sonipat, Deepender Singh Hooda from Rohtak, Shruti Choudhary from Bhiwani-Mahendragarh, Ajay Singh Yadav from Gurgaon, and Avtar Singh Bhadana fought from Faridabad. All of them lost to the BJP.

Out of these leaders, Ashok Tanwar and Bhavya Bishnoi are now in the BJP. Bhavya also represents the Adampur constituency in Haryana Vidhan Sabha.

Kumari Selja, AICC general secretary and in charge of Uttarakhand, told The Indian Express, “I had never applied earlier too. It is for the party high command to decide who is to be fielded where. But, frankly, I would want to contest Vidhan Sabha this time and I had already communicated to the party high command as well”.

Leader of Opposition and former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda told The Indian Express, “I have never applied seeking a ticket. It is the party that will decide who will contest from where… It is good that party workers are applying to contest [the election]. All of them also feel that they are being considered. The party high command shall take the final call, after screening all the applications. As far as I am concerned, whatever party decides, I shall go with that”.

The BJP, in 2019, had had a stupendous victory in all 10 seats of Haryana. The highest winning margin was of BJP candidate Sanjay Bhatia who defeated Congress’ Kuldeep Sharma by a margin of more than 6.5 lakh votes followed by the saffron party leader Krishan Pal Gurjar who trounced the grand old party’s Avtar Singh Bhadana by over 6.3 lakh votes.

Congress’ Deepender Hooda was the only exception who lost to the BJP’s Arvind Kumar Sharma by a thin margin of nearly 7500 votes. Bhupinder Hooda also lost to the BJP leader Ramesh Chander Kaushik by over 1.6 lakh votes margin. Shruti Choudhry, too, had lost to BJP’s Dharambir by a margin of over 4.4 lakh votes.

Talking to The Indian Express, a senior party leader said, “The lists compiled by the party indicate all those who are seeking tickets to contest Lok Sabha polls. It is a democratic process that the Congress party follows. Other factors are also kept in consideration before declaring the candidates. The topmost factor is the winnability. If the party high command feels that there is some other party worker or leader who needs to be fielded in a particular constituency, it can also be done. Sometimes, the big leaders are declared as candidates close to the polls”.