Vote for Haryanvi blood: Gurgaon MP daughter’s message to rural voters

Rao Inderjit is a descendant of Rao Tula Ram, the former king of the Ahirwal region that comprises Rewari, Mahendragarh, Gurgaon and parts of Bhiwani, Dadri, Nuh, Jhajjar and Rajasthan’s Alwar. His father Rao Birender Singh served as Haryana’s second chief minister in 1967.
Arti, who has been working with her father for over a decade, had earlier said she would contest the 2024 Assembly polls. On Tuesday, she visited Pataudi among other places while her father campaigned in Rewari on Wednesday.

Gurgaon has 25.3 lakh voters, of which over 55% of voters are from rural areas of the constituency, making it an important base for politicians to focus on.

At Silani, district BJP leader Om Prakash, addressing a room of 50-odd people, said: “Even if monarchy has gone by, when someone says Raja, Rao Inderjit’s name comes to the mind, not because he’s just a royal, but he’s people’s monarch.”

At Hajipur, Arti Rao, donning a pagdi, was met with grievances from the public. “… the national highway passing by the area was downgraded to a state highway. A single-lane road from Rewari to Aligarh should be made into a two-lane one. We hope behenji informs Rao sahab of this,” said locals seated at the hall.

To this, Arti read out a list of projects under Singh, emphasising on Majra AIIMS, the foundation stone of which was laid by PM Narendra Modi in February. “Rao aaya AIIMS laya,” the BJP leaders said. “People in South Haryana have to go to either Jaipur AIIMS, which is frequented by Rajasthanis, or Delhi AIIMS which treats the whole country. With the AIIMS in Rewari, people of South Haryana can seek treatment in their own region,” she said.
At Khutapuri, locals complained that they had never even seen Rao’s face. Arti replied that since Gurgaon is the largest constituency in the state, it is a challenge to reach every village. “But we’ll deliver this message and he will come to meet all of you,” she said.

Meanwhile, Congress’s Babbar started his campaigning by visiting Gurgaon’s Sheetla Mata Mandir. On being called an “outsider”, he said his forefathers migrated from Pakistan to India and landed in Ambala. “I might be born in Agra but many of my relatives are in Faridabad and my sister is in Gurgaon. My relationship with the city is not a flimsy claim, but when my ancestors came to India, they came to Haryana,” he said.