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Journalism of Courage
Two days to go for the nomination deadline to end for the prestigious Adampur Assembly seat bypoll, the Congress has finally come up with a candidate: veteran Jai Prakash, 67, who was in other parties before joining the Congress, and lost the last time he contested from the seat.
However, the badly divided Congress appears to have at least reached a consensus on Jai Prakash’s name. The list of star campaigners for him includes names across all factions – Bhupinder Singh Hooda and son Deepender Hooda, Kumari Selja, Randeep Surjewala, Udai Bhan, Ajay Singh Yadav and Kiran Choudhry.
Adampur seat fell vacant after prominent Congress leader Kuldeep Bishnoi quit the party for the BJP. His son Bhavya Bishnoi, 27, is fighting on the BJP ticket from here, while the AAP candidate is Satender Singh, 45.
A native of Dubbal village in Kaithal, Jai Prakash has represented the Hisar Lok Sabha seat thrice – 2004-2009, 1996-1998, and 1989-1991 – each time for a different party. The Adampur seat falls under Hisar.
Having begun his career with INLD founder Devi Lal in the 1980s, Jai Prakash won in 1989 on a Janata Dal ticket, then as a nominee of the Haryana Vikas Party founded by Bansi Lal in 1996, and in 2004, on a Congress ticket. When he won in 1990, he was inducted as a Union minister of state in then prime minister Chandra Shekhar’s government.
In 2009, Jai Prakash lost both the polls he contested – the Assembly contest for Adampur, and the Lok Sabha one for Hisar. In 2011, he lost the bypoll held to the Hisar Lok Sabha seat. In 2014, contesting as an Independent, he won from Kalayat Assembly constituency, but in 2019, he failed to retain it.
Jai Prakash has also had personal experience with the changing equations within the Congress. In 2014, when he contested as an Independent and still won from Kalayat, he had accused Bhupinder Hooda of ensuring he didn’t get a Congress ticket. The nomination had gone to a close aide of senior Congress leader Randeep Surjewala. Jai Prakash and Surjewala’s association goes as far back as 1996, when the two had contested for Narwana, and Jai Prakash had lost by a narrow 400 votes.
Jai Prakash was incidentally then a candidate of the Haryana Vikas Party, whose legacy has passed on to Bansi Lal’s daughter-in-law Kiran Choudhry, one of the anti-Hooda leaders in the Congress. After his name was announced as the Adampur candidate, Jai Prakash expressed confidence that he would win. “I shall contest the polls with all my strength and with the full support of my party workers and leadership,” he said.
The Haryana Congress said that as per the strategy formulated by them, the constituency has been divided into three zones. “All 30 MLAs of the Congress, 48 former MLAs and ex-MPs will reach Adampur to ensure the Congress candidate’s victory,” said Haryana Congress chief and Hooda loyalist Udai Bhan.
Hooda called Jai Prakash “a seasoned and experienced politician” who knows the pulse of the people. “He has been connected with the people of the entire Hisar Lok Sabha seat, especially Adampur, for several years.
While the BJP’s nominee (Bhavya) landed from abroad about a month ago, Jai Prakash has been living among the people of Hisar all his life.” Hooda called the belief that Adampur was a Bishnoi family stronghold a “myth”. “It is a stronghold of the Congress and it is because of the party that the Bishnoi family has been winning from there.”
