A crucial battle on for political power in Sirsa municipal poll

The results of the Sirsa Municipal Council election will play a crucial role in shaping the future of local politics. In this election, the reputation of former minister and Haryana Lokhit Party (HLP) chief Gopal Kanda, his brother BJP leader Gobind Kanda, and Congress MLA Gokul Setia is on the line.

The election mainly revolved around the Kanda brothers and Gokul Setia. On one side, BJP candidate Shanti Swaroop Valmiki was backed by the Kanda brothers, while on the other, Congress candidate Jaswinder Kaur had the full support of Gokul Setia. During the campaign, Gokul Setia took charge and led from the front. The Kanda brothers also worked hard behind the scenes, with Gobind Kanda managing the strategy and Shanti Swaroop visiting polling booths alongside him.

This election is significant because it will result in the first-ever directly elected chairperson of the Municipal Council. Earlier, the chairperson was selected by the councillors. The winner will make history by being the first directly elected chairperson.

If the BJP candidate wins, Gopal Kanda will avenge his crushing defeat in the Assembly elections against Gokul Setia. Despite receiving support from the INLD, BSP and the BJP in the Assembly elections, Gopal Kanda lost to Gokul Setia. If Gokul Setia wins again, it will prove his popularity as he was recently elected as an MLA.

However, the voter turnout in this election was low, with only 56.4 per cent of the registered voters casting their ballots. In some areas, such as 33 polling booths, the turnout was below 50 per cent. Many voters, especially from posh colonies, showed little interest in voting. One reason for this was the change in ward boundaries, which caused confusion. The voters had to travel long distances to vote in their new wards. In some cases, even married couples found their voting slips at different locations, leading them to skip voting.

Another factor was that the chairperson's post was reserved for the Scheduled Caste community, leading to reduced enthusiasm among the general category voters. Senior citizen Kuldeep Singh mentioned that when positions are reserved for the SC candidates, the general category voters often show less interest in voting.

Furthermore, the absence of key political figures like former Deputy CM Dushyant Chautala, Dighvijay Chautala, and INLD leader Abhay Chautala from the election campaign also led to lack of energy in the election. This contributed to the overall low voter turnout.

The election had 122 candidates running for 32 ward councillor seats and seven candidates for the chairperson’s post. Out of the total 160,036 voters in Sirsa, 90,240 people participated in the voting. Despite the low turnout, some booths saw a relatively high voting percentage, with Ward 25 seeing 75.07 per cent voting and Ward 26 seeing 72.9 per cent voting.

After the election, all EVMs were secured in strong rooms at Chaudhary Devilal University (CDLU), Sirsa. There were three layers of security for the EVMs, including police forces and CCTV surveillance. The vote counting will take place on March 12, and the winner will be the first ever directly elected chairperson in Sirsa’s history.