By Jaideep Sarin, IANS,
Hisar (Haryana) : The by-election to the Hisar Lok Sabha seat Thursday was always thought to be a three-cornered contest. But events over the weekend have added a new dimension to it.
The contest was primarily between the Congress, the opposition Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the Haryana Janhit Congress-Bharatiya Janata Party (HJC-BJP) combine. A late entry by Team Anna Hazare with a specific anti-Congress campaign has queered the pitch of the election, giving it a national colour as against just local issues.
With Team Anna coming out openly in the last three to four days to campaign against the Congress party in the Hisar condtituency, the ruling Congress in Haryana and particularly Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, are feeling the heat.
The contest for this seat is tough for the three main players — Kuldeep Bishnoi of the HJC, who is the son of the late Bhajan Lal, INLD’s Ajay Chautala who is the son of former chief minister Om Prakash Chautala, and three-time former MP Jai Prakash of the Congress. Bishnoi has the support of the BJP for this election.
The seat fell vacant in June this year following the death of Bhajan Lal, a three-time chief minister of Haryana infamous for engineering political defections, who had won the seat in May 2009.
The by-election to the Hisar seat takes place Oct 13 and the result will be out Oct 17.
With the HJC-BJP combine and INLD putting up powerful candidates, Chief Minister Hooda has been forced to camp in the Hisar constituency for nearly 15 days to ensure that the Congress candidate, considered weaker in front of his opponents, does not go down meekly.
“The chief minister has been camping here for the last 15 days. Even his son is camping in Hisar. Congress leaders are saying that the prestige of Sonia Gandhi is at stake,” Team Anna activist Arvind Kejriwal said here.
“We have not asked anyone to vote for the BJP or any other party or candidate. We are only asking voters not to vote for the Congress as the party is opposed to bringing an effective Jan Lokpal bill and wants to shield the corrupt. Voters in Hisar can choose any out of the remaining candidates,” Kejriwal said.
Hooda, who has visited a number of villages and towns in recent days, is putting up a brave front despite the fact that the Hisar election result could be anyone’s game.
“We are not nervous. Why should we be nervous? We are getting good support from the people and we are looking for a win here,” he said during campaigning.
Local issues like water, electricity, unemployment and fertiliser prices have taken a backseat in recent days with national issues like Team Anna’s campaign and corruption and price rise coming to the forefront.
The stakes are high for all three parties and their candidates. Hisar was the only seat the Congress could not win out of the state’s 10 Lok Sabha seats in the 2009 general elections.
Within the Congress, senior leaders like Rajya Sabha MP and Congress general secretary Birender Singh have been sulking. Singh tried to get the Hisar seat ticket of the Congress for one of his family members but failed.
INLD, which returned with 31 seats in the 90-member assembly in the October 2009 poll, too is expecting a victory on this seat.
“We are taking this election very seriously. That is why we have fielded a strong candidate in Ajay Chautala,” a senior INLD leader said.
For Kuldeep Bishnoi, the Hisar seat is home turf as his family hails from the district. He is likely to cash in on his father’s legacy in the area.
Both Bishnoi and Chautala are legislators in the state assembly.
(Jaideep Sarin can be contacted at [email protected])