Haryana BJP first list stuck over 35 Assembly seats, CM Saini says will stick to Karnal

State party chief Mohan Lal Badoli rules himself out of the contest.

Ladwa will be Saini’s third constituency — Assembly or parliamentary — over the past decade. (PTI Photo)

The BJP’s first list for the Haryana Assembly polls is likely to be announced in a couple of days as 35 seats out of the total 90 have still not been finalised after multiple rounds of meetings of the Haryana BJP core group and the BJP Central Election Committee (CEC).

“About 55 seats have been finalised but brainstorming is still going on for the remaining 35 seats. Meetings have been going on through Friday and the outcome will be conveyed to the top leadership, which will then take the final call on the next move,” said a party leader who did not wish to be identified.

Earlier in the day, state BJP president Mohan Lal Badoli, in Delhi to meet the party’s national leadership, ruled himself out of the contest and said Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini would switch from Karnal to Ladwa in Kurukshetra district.

“Nayab Singh Saini will contest from Ladwa while I won’t be contesting. It is my responsibility to coordinate with all the candidates for the 90 Assembly constituencies. So far, we have decided not to contest as part of an alliance. The CEC held its meeting yesterday in which discussion was held on the names of candidates for all the seats. In the first list, a few candidates shall be declared and the remaining shall be announced in the subsequent list,” Badoli said.

However, later in the day, Nayab Singh Saini told media persons, “He (Mohanlal Badoli) may have more information, but it is the parliamentary board that will take the final decision.”

Asked whether he would contest from Karnal or Ladwa, the CM said, “I will only contest from Karnal.”

BJP insiders said that there was a perception that the party had taken longer than expected to release the candidate list for a small state such as Haryana. Having dropped five seats in the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP is under pressure going into the Assembly elections and faces anti-incumbency.

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Haryana was one of the hubs of the 2020-21 farmers’ agitation that ended only when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the withdrawal of the three farm laws that had triggered the protests. There is still a strong demand in the state for a legal guarantee for MSP. Haryana was also the hub of the wrestlers’ protest against former party MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who was accused of sexual harassment. Since the election dates were announced and the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) came into effect, the party has been facing pushback over several issues, from a former minister threatening an IPS officer on camera in Rohtak and an MLA distributing bags carrying watches and clothes with his pictures on it to the use of a child in a poll-campaign video.

The BJP’s hope, according to insiders, is that a “Jats versus the rest” polarisation will help it electorally — Jats seem to have largely veered towards the Congress — though the Congress’s gains in the recent parliamentary polls were significant. In the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress increased its vote share in the state from 28% to 43% and won five seats. A diminished BJP, however, still had a 46% vote share, with its vote share taking a hit of 12 percentage points.

In 2014, Saini won for the first time from the Naraingarh Assembly seat and five years later, successfully contested the Lok Sabha polls from Kurukshetra. This March, when former CM Manohar Lal Khattar stepped down and Saini succeeded him at the helm of the state, he won the bypoll from Karnal, the seat Khattar vacated.

Vikas Pathak

Vikas Pathak is deputy associate editor with The Indian Express and writes on national politics. He has over 17 years of experience, and has worked earlier with The Hindustan Times and The Hindu, among other publications. He has covered the national BJP, some key central ministries and Parliament for years, and has covered the 2009 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls and many state assembly polls. He has interviewed many Union ministers and Chief Ministers. Vikas has taught as a full-time faculty member at Asian College of Journalism, Chennai; Symbiosis International University, Pune; Jio Institute, Navi Mumbai; and as a guest professor at Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi. Vikas has authored a book, Contesting Nationalisms: Hinduism, Secularism and Untouchability in Colonial Punjab (Primus, 2018), which has been widely reviewed by top academic journals and leading newspapers. He did his PhD, M Phil and MA from JNU, New Delhi, was Student of the Year (2005-06) at ACJ and gold medalist from University Rajasthan College in Jaipur in graduation. He has been invited to top academic institutions like JNU, St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and IIT Delhi as a guest speaker/panellist. ... Read More