Chandigarh, April 10
After keeping the aspirants on tenterhooks for all these days the Congress today announced its candidates for Bhiwani and Sonepat, just a day before the process of filing nomination papers would begin.
The party has fielded Shruti, daughter of Haryana Minister of State for Tourism Kiran Choudhry from Bhiwani, and MLA from Kailana Jitender Singh Malik from the Sonepat Lok Sabha constituency. Party general secretary in charge of Haryana Prithviraj Chavan made this announcement here.
The two seats had seen hectic lobbying by various factions in the party for seeking the ticket for their nominees. The lobbying was so intense that the Central Election Committee of the party could not take a decision and it was left to Sonia Gandhi.
From Sonepat, Finance Minister Birender Singh was a strong contender, with Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda equally determined for securing the nomination for his man from this seat, which has been arduously nursed by him in the past several years. His supporters give him the credit for successfully countering the influence of the INLD from the Deswali belt of the Jat land, of which Sonepat and Rohtak are part.
It is not to suggest that Hooda had his say all the way. The high command always tries to keep the state leaders in check by giving a push from time to time to their opponents.
But over all Hooda’s will has prevailed. In the face of stiff opposition, Hooda was successful in getting renomination for Avtar Singh Badhana from Faridabad. Same is the case with Jai Prakash Barwala from Hissar.
Contrary to the popular perception, Arvind Sharma was renominated by the party from Karnal only after Hooda blessed him.
In Bhiwani, Hooda had suggested that union minister Rao Inderjit Singh should contest from there instead of Gurgaon. His argument was that if two Jats contested from Bhiwani (the INLD has also fielded a Jat), a non-Jat candidate fielded by some other party could win this seat because of a division in the Jat votes. However, among the Jat aspirants he had recommended the name of Shruti.
