After son’s defeat, Bishnoi out to woo back Adampur

Sushil Manav & Deepender Deswal

Tribune News Service

Adampur, October 14

After his son Bhavya Bishnoi’s defeat in the Lok Sabha poll, senior Congress leader Kuldeep Bishnoi is leaving no stone unturned to regain his father Bhajan Lal’s political legacy in Adampur in the Assembly elections.

Facing TikTok sensation Sonali Phogat of the BJP, Bishnoi is busy reviving old relations of his father and cajoling the old supporters who have switched loyalties due to some reasons.

Ever since Bishnoi’s father, former CM Bhajan Lal, adopted this seat in 1968, the seat has gone to his family on all 13 occasions to date. Bhajan Lal won the Adampur seat on nine occasions, his wife Jasma Devi once, Kuldeep Bishnoi twice and his wife Renuka Bishnoi on one occasion.

However, when Bhavya Bishnoi was badly defeated by the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha poll from Hisar —- he came third after Bijendra Singh (BJP) and Dushyant Chautala (JJP) — Adampur Assembly segment, which is part of the Hisar parliamentary seat, also gave him 23,500 votes less than the BJP candidate.

Bishnoi is determined to recapture the lost ground in this election now and he is depending on personal contacts to achieve the target. As his cavalcade enters Ghursal village in the constituency on Monday afternoon, a group of villagers greet him with garlands of marigold flowers.

“In the Lok Sabha elections, people voted for Modi and not for Brijendra Singh. But this time, I will win the seat by a handsome margin,” Bishnoi claims.

He says that Sonali Phogat doesn’t even know the names of villages under the Adampur segment. “We have 56 villages in Adampur. If you ask her to name five, she will not be able to answer,” he claims.

Bishnoi’s opponent Sonali Phogat is, however, confident that she would defeat the Congress leader.

“Drinking water as well as irrigation water remain the biggest problems. In some villages, the erratic supply of electricity is also an issue. These issues will be my prority,” she promises.