Withdrawal Of Nominations: BJP rebels Savitri Jindal, Ranjit Chautala refuse to back out; trouble for Congress too

Monday was the last day for withdrawal of nominations for the October 5 Assembly elections. Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Pankaj Agarwal said 190 candidates have withdrawn their nominations leaving 1,031 in fray.

Prominent among those who refused to back out is Savitri Jindal, who is now in a triangular contest in Hisar, where the BJP has again fielded state health minister Kamal Gupta while Congress has given ticket to Ram Niwas Rara, an associate of former union minister and Sirsa MP Kumari Selja.

After being denied ticket by BJP, Savitri Jindal — the country’s richest woman with declared assets worth Rs 270.66 crore — threw her hat in the ring, filing her papers as an Independent candidate on the last day of the nominations. Savitri Jindal, following her son and industrialist Naveen Jindal, had joined the BJP in the presence of Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini and former CM Manohar Lal Khattar in March this year. However, a few days ago, she claimed that she had not joined the BJP “officially”. Claiming that “this is my last election”, she had said she “should be given one chance” to serve the public and “to complete unfinished works of Hisar’s public”.

Ranjit Chautala, meanwhile, had announced much earlier that he will contest from Rania. Son of former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal, Ranjit Chautala had resigned as Cabinet minister after being denied ticket by the BJP. He had contested the 2019 Assembly election as an Independent candidate from Rania after allegedly being “ignored by the Congress”, and had announced support to the BJP even when the counting of votes was still on. He formally joined the BJP in March this year after resigning as MLA and was fielded by the saffron party in the Lok Sabha elections from Hisar.

The BJP, meanwhile, managed to get some other rebels to withdraw their nomination. They include former deputy Speaker Santosh Yadav, who withdrew her nomination as an independent candidate from Ateli from where BJP has fielded Union minister Rao Inderjit Singh’s daughter Aarti Rao. Former media advisor to the then CM Manohar Lal Khattar, Rajiv Jain, too withdrew his papers after Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini met him in Sonipat. Jain’s wife Kavita Jain, a two-time former MLA, was a minister in the first BJP government led by Khattar but lost the 2019 Assembly polls from Sonipat. The couple was angry after denial of a party ticket from Sonipat this time.

Former state BJP chief Ram Bilas Sharma, who had rebelled after being denied ticket from Mahendragarh, has now joined the poll campaign of the party’s official candidate. CM Saini had met Sharma too at latter’s residence on Sunday.

From Congress, three-time MLA Ram Kishan Fauji withdrew his nomination from Bawani Khera, while former minister Sampat Singh and his son Gaurav Sampat Singh withdrew their papers from Nalwa constituency. The Congress has fielded Anil Mann from Nalwa against BJP leader Kuldeep Bishnoi’s close associate Randhir Panihar.

From Ambala City, former MLA Jasbir Malaur withdrew from the contest against Congress nominee and former Minister Nirmal Singh. However, Nirmal Singh’s daughter Chitra Sarwara, a Congress rebel, continues to be in the race from the Ambala Cantt seat against six-time MLA and former home minister Anil Vij of BJP and Congress’ official candidate Parvinder Singh Pari.

In 2019, Chitra and her father had contested the Assembly election as independent candidates from Ambala City and Ambala Cantt, respectively. Nirmal Singh had secured nearly 56,000 votes but lost to BJP’s Aseem Goel by a margin of 8,952 votes. Chitra had secured more than 44,000 votes, losing to Vij by nearly 20,000 votes.