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Journalism of Courage
In a show of strength and a sign of potential tensions with his party, former Union minister Chaudhary Birender Singh will be holding a rally in Haryana’s Jind on October 2 without BJP flags or banners. Instructions have accordingly been given to party workers, who have been asked to come to the rally bearing only the national flag.
The rally is dubbed Meri Awaaz Suno (Listen to My Voice) and the official organiser is “Birender Singh ke Sathi (Friends of Birender Singh)”.
Sources close to the leader told The Indian Express that the rally would “also be an invitation for the formation of new social combinations”, to consolidate Singh’s image as “a leader of the people”. Bhim Army Chief Chandra Shekhar Aazad and Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Yudhvir Singh are among the invitees to the rally. Singh was the only prominent BJP leader to have supported the farm protests in 2020.
Singh claims all he wants to do is to put the spotlight on “issues of unemployment, poverty, agriculture and education and health”. “After the introduction of economic reforms in 1991, our economy has witnessed a big jump. The government says that we are currently the fifth largest economy in the world and would soon be one of the top three economies in the world. But the poor and farmers have not got their share in these 32 years of economic reforms. Can only the trading class and industrialists make crores in this country?”
He adds that the Jind event would be “above politics” and a “common ground for intellectuals and social scientists to share their ideas on challenges the society is currently facing”. “This will be like a seminar in which thousands of people will participate.”
In context of 2024 polls
However, few disagree that the rally, coming ahead of parliamentary elections, will help “exhibit Birender Singh’s relevance” in state politics. People from nearly 30 Assembly constituencies (the state has 90 seats) have been invited for the event, sources point out.
Singh anticipates a challenge from Kuldeep Bishnoi, a Congress-turned-BJP leader, for the Hisar parliamentary seat. Plus, there is speculation that Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) leader and Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala may lay claim to Hisar, in an alliance with the BJP for the parliamentary polls.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Singh’s son Brijendra Singh had defeated Dushyant as well as Kuldeep Bishnoi’s son Bhavya Bishnoi (who was also then with the Congress), to win Hisar Lok Sabha seat.
In the Assembly polls later that year, Dushyant had defeated Birender Singh’s wife Prem Lata (BJP), to win from the Uchana Kalan seat.
