Kuldeep’s rise & fall: From CM nominee to I-T raids

Deepender Deswal

Tribune News Service

Hisar, July 29

If politics makes strange bedfellows, it can also lead to unexpected fallouts and drastic change of fortunes.

The Congress MLA from Adampur, Kuldeep Bishnoi, whose residences have become the target of income tax raids, was the chief ministerial face of the BJP and HJC combine just before the 2014 Assembly poll.

BJP leader Arun Jaitley had announced him as chief ministerial candidate at a rally in Hisar on December 1, 2013.

But things changed drastically after he lost the Hisar Lok Sabha poll as the joint candidate of the BJP and HJC. The BJP dumped him and decided to go it alone in the Assembly poll.

Subsequently, the non-Jat poll plank which used to be Bishnoi’s strength, was taken over by the BJP and it succeeded in wresting power for the first time in Haryana in October 2014.

Post polls, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar strengthened the party’s base among non-Jats and most of Kuldeep’s political supporters switched loyalty to the BJP.

The humiliating defeat of Bhavya Bishnoi, who contested the Lok Sabha poll from Hisar, was an indication that the Bishnoi family has lost its ground even on their home turf of Adampur. Experts, however, say mistakes by Bishnoi — who was anointed political heir by his father Bhajan Lal — led to his fall in Haryana.

“It is believed that Kuldeep ignored the advice of his father and revolted against the Congress when Bhupinder Hooda was made the Chief Minister. He formed a separate party, the HJC, and the rest is history. He managed to win only two seats — Adampur and Hansi — in the 2014 poll. He decided to merge with the Congress in 2016 without his party workers. That further irked his followers,” said one of his aides.

Political commentator Pawan Kumar Bansal says that being out of power for 24 years, Bishnois are on a weak footing now. “The timing of the raids just ahead of the Assembly poll and the silence of the raiding team so far have created suspicion on the intentions of the action,” he said.