Randeep Singh Surjewala’s son banks on family legacy, fights ‘videshi’ tag in Haryana poll battle

It was only last year that Aditya finished his graduation in Canada, from the University of BC, after schooling at The International School, Bangalore. This fact is what his BJP rival and veteran Leela Ram is underlining to take on the debutant.

Aditya on campaign trail. (Express photo)

Leela Ram, 63, who narrowly defeated Surjewala Senior in the 2019 Assembly elections by 1,246 votes, dismisses Aditya saying: “His father is videshi (a jibe at the fact that Randeep Surjewala has mainly been active in national politics), and beta super videshi hai, aaya hi videsh se hai (the son is a super foreigner, he has even come from a foreign land).”

The Kaithal seat was won by Aditya’s grandfather Shamsher Singh Surjewala (now deceased) in 2005. Before that, he was a four-time MLA from Narwana seat and one-time MP. Randeep won Kaithal in 2009 and 2014, but after that, he has failed to win an election, losing first the Kaithal Assembly seat in 2019 and then a 2020 Assembly bypoll from Jind.

Randeep is currently a Congress Rajya Sabha MP from Rajasthan, who has made news in the Haryana Assembly elections this time only for pushing back – ineffectually – against his bitter party rival Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Surjewala Senior is believed to be still hopeful of chief ministership should the Congress win come October 8.

Aditya on campaign trail. (Express Photo)

Dented as his father’s legacy currently is, Aditya has only that to go on, given his own inexperience. In the campaign, Randeep and his supporters are a constant presence, guiding his debut. His posters include images of the senior Congress leadership, including Rahul and Sonia Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge.

At one of his campaign rallies in a Kaithal village, Aditya addresses his five-year stay abroad, and links it to the situation back in Haryana. “When I went to Canada in 2018, I would not see many youngsters from our area there. In 2023, I could only find youth from Haryana who had moved there after realising that there were no job avenues back home. My heart ached seeing that.”

He tells The Indian Express that Kaithal has always been home. “I have friends here and in Narwana too, where I spent a lot of my childhood. Shamsher Singh Surjewala ji used to take my brother and me out in the car. As a young boy at that time, I felt how important and satisfying it is to help people.”

Aditya on campaign trail. (Express Photo)

Aditya says his degree course too will help his politics. “My degree is about operations and logistics. So, I learnt a lot from my personal experience in Canada, how different governments function, how different bureaucracies work….”

He says he understands how to reach out to the different communities in Kaithal, as well. “I understand that a labourer has a different problem than a shopkeeper in the city. So, I try to understand their issues. The language has to be changed, the dialect changes.”

He tells people how he has seen Kaithal’s “transformation” under his father, and the “deterioration” since. “Kaithal is like our temple… Our sisters, daughters, mothers could once easily move around the well-lit Kaithal’s streets. But they do not dare step out now after 10 years of the BJP’s tenure. The Congress party, my grandfather, my father used to run the government with a vision. The BJP government does not even know the ‘V’ of vision.”

Aditya on campaign trail. (Express photo)

Aditya flays the BJP for “only doing caste-based, religion politics”. “Since my grandfather’s time, I have learnt how to do work-based politics.”

Aditya lays out his own vision for Kaithal next, saying “my fight is not for the next five years, but 50 years”. “My aim is to make Kaithal even better than Gurgaon. I want to bring infrastructure projects, generate employment… The youth of Haryana whom we expect to bring medals at the Olympics do not have basic washrooms in stadiums.”

His age is not a factor, Aditya insists to The Indian Express. “At 25, your brain is fully developed, which is why this is the minimum age for contesting an Assembly election.”

Apart from Leela Ram, Aditya is up against the Aam Aadmi Party’s Satbir Goyat and the INLD-BSP’s Anil Tanwar.

In the recent Lok Sabha polls, the Congress did not contest the Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat under which Kaithal falls, leaving it for its ally AAP. The BJP’s Naveen Jindal won, with the AAP’s Sushil Gupta trailing in the Kaithal Assembly segment.

Aditya says he is not worried. Free of anxiety regarding sustaining his family – he has Rs 26 crore worth of assets and Rs 1.5 crore annual income, as per his affidavit – he says his only aim is to make the lives of the people better. “I am sure I will win with a margin that Kaithal has never seen in its history.”