Raking up ‘discrimination’ against south Haryana, MoS Rao Inderjit’s daughter lays ground for her poll debut

The 72-year-old Gurgaon MP, Rao Inderjit Singh is currently the Union Minister of State (independent charge) of Planning and Statistics as well as Programme Implementation besides being the MoS of Corporate Affairs. He is a descendant of Rao Tularam, the erstwhile king of the Ahirwal region that comprises of Rewari, Mahendragarh, Gurgaon and parts of Bhiwani, Dadri, Nuh, Jhajjar and Rajasthan’s Alwar. His father Rao Birender Singh had served as Haryana’s second chief minister in 1967.

A former Congress leader, Rao Inderjit Singh had switched to the BJP ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Aarti had her schooling in Himachal Pradesh’s Lawrence School (Sanawar) and Modern School in Delhi. She has been a national champion in women’s skeet shooting for a record 15 times. Recently, she was appointed the president of the Haryana Para Sports Association.

Although she has not contested any election so far, Aarti sought to contest the 2019 Assembly poll but could not get the saffron party’s ticket. She is however keen on contesting the Haryana Assembly election slated for October 2024. “I will contest the election this time. From where and how I will contest – the time will tell. But I will certainly contest the election,” she says. Although her native village Rampura falls in the Rewari Assembly segment, she says she is willing to contest from any seat including Nangal Chaudhary, Ateli, Narnail, Kosli or Rewari.

Singh had lobbied hard to secure a party ticket for his daughter in the 2019 state Assembly election, but could not succeed. The BJP had then reportedly declined to field Aarti by invoking its “one ticket per family” formula since it had already given the ticket to Singh from Gurgaon for the parliamentary polls.

Sources close to him said Singh was upset over the BJP’s denial of ticket to Aarti on this ground. This time, Singh has again pinned his hopes for a party ticket for Aarti for the coming Assembly election, citing the instance of Karnataka polls where it gave tickets to the relatives of many party leaders.

He recently said, “We had sought (a ticket) earlier too; it was not given. It will be sought again this time. And this time, there is more hope because when they (BJP) can give tickets (to party leaders’ family members) in Karnataka… then Haryana is also part of Hindustan.”

Earlier, Singh had maintained that “People say, field Aarti for a poll battle. She campaigned for BJP twice (in 2014, 2019), though the party did not give a ticket to her. Do the kids listen when they grow older? She has herself made an announcement that she will contest the next election.”

Amid her family’s keenness for her entry in electoral politics, Aarti has already toured different parts of south Haryana, which accounts for 22 of the state’s total 90 Assembly seats. The region also accounts for three Lok Sabha constituencies – Gurgaon, Faridabad and Bhiwani-Mahendragarh – and even the Rohtak parliamentary seat partially.

In her public outreach, Aarti has been raising the issue of alleged “discrimination against south Haryana” in terms of its representation in the state government. “People say, there is no adequate representation in the government for south Haryana, which gives maximum seats in the formation of a government,” she says, even as she has also been calling for the need of the Ahir Regiment in the Army.

Singh, who has been the MoS in the Narendra Modi ministry for the past nine years, is being projected by his supporters as the party’s CM candidate in the 2024 Haryana polls, claiming that he never got his dues in the BJP in accordance with his contribution to the party’s performance in successive polls in the state since 2014. A five-time MP and four-time MLA, Singh had been an MoS in the Congress-led UPA government too, they note, questioning why he has still not been allotted a cabinet berth.

In October 2021, Singh was also dropped from the BJP’s national executive. In a major organisational reshuffle in August 2022, the BJP leadership inducted two party leaders from Haryana, Union minister Bhupender Yadav and former MP Sudha Yadav, into its Central Election Committee. Sudha Yadav was later inducted into the BJP’s Parliamentary Board – the party’s highest decision-making body — too.

Many saw in their elevation a snub to Rao Inderjit Singh, who also belongs to the Yadav community. A few days before these appointments, Singh had insisted, “We have to struggle for our rights. If we don’t struggle, nobody will give us importance.”

Singh has not had his way in the BJP-led Haryana coalition government either. Two ministers in the Manohar Lal Khattar government, Om Prakash Yadav and Banwari Lal, who are considered to be in Singh’s camp, had been allotted relatively minor portfolios. Lal was given the public health engineering portfolio only four months ago.

In 2021, Singh had organised in Jhajjar the “Shaheedi Diwas Samaroh”, a rally that was seen as a show of his strength. Six BJP MLAs considered to be his loyalists, including Om Prakash and Banwari Lal, had participated in the rally. Rao had then hit out at his opponents for “writing his political obituaries”. He had then said he would continue to fight elections and would not retire. He also recently asserted that “I am in BJP and I intend to remain in BJP.”