By IANS,
Chandigarh : The Congress Saturday repeated its 2004 Lok Sabha sweep of Haryana, winning nine of the 10 seats. Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s son, Deepinder Singh Hooda, led the Congress’ attack from the front registering a massive victory by over 445,000 votes in Rohtak.
Barring the Hisar seat, where former chief minister and now Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) leader Bhajan Lal won beating his Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and Congress rivals, the Congress romped home in the other nine seats.
The INLD-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alliance was completely routed in the state.
Bhajan Lal, 78, managed to win by a small margin of 6,983 votes against former Haryana finance minister Sampat Singh of the INLD. Sitting Congress MP Jai Prakash finished third.
Hooda junior won from the Rohtak seat by 445,736 votes over his nearest INLD rival Nafe Singh Rathee. Rohtak is a known political borough of the Hoodas.
Deepinder Hooda had first won this seat in a by-election in October 2005 after his father quit the constituency after taking over as chief minister.
Billionaire steel tycoon Naveen Jindal was also re-elected from the Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat with a margin of 118,729 over his INLD rival Ashok Kumar Arora.
The Congress also won the Ambala, Sonipat, Sirsa, Faridabad, Bhiwani-Mahendragarh, Karnal and Gurgaon seats.
Indian Youth Congress President Ashok Tanwar won from the Sirsa (reserved) seat by a margin of nearly 35,500 votes.
INLD leader Ajay Singh Chautala, son of former chief minister Om Prakash Chautala, lost in the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh seat to political greenhorn, the Congress’ Shruti Chaudhary, the grand-daughter of former chief minister Bansi Lal. Her mother, Kiran Chaudhary, is a minister in the Hooda government.
In the new Gurgaon seat, union Minister of State for Defence Rao Inderjit Singh won by over 84,800 votes.
On the Karnal seat, Arvind Sharma of the Congress won by over 76,000 votes.
Union minister Selja won the Ambala (reserved) seat with a small margin of 14,570 votes.
In 2004, the Congress won nine seats.
The results will give a boost to the ruling Congress with assembly elections being less than a year away (February-March next year).