ASSEMBLY POLL 2024: BJP hopes to repeat performance in Ahirwal region, tough battle likely
Rewari, the epicentre of the Ahirwal region, is among those districts of the state where the BJP is focusing on repeating its performance of the last two Assembly elections held in 2014 and 2019 to form the government for the third time.
The saffron party made a clean sweep by clinching all three seats— Rewari, Kosli and Bawal (Reserved)—in the district in 2014 but the Congress wrested one of the seats—Rewari— from it in the 2019 elections in a close contest.
The Congress has not yet announced its candidate for any of the seats but those confident about getting the party ticket have already launched their poll campaign and seeking votes from the people. The BJP has announced its candidates for Rewari and Kosli constituencies while hectic lobbying is underway for the Bawal constituency.
A total of 7,29,025 electors in the district will elect their three MLAs by exercising their franchise on October 5. Among them, 2,51,760 voters are in Rewari, 2,48,937 in Kosli and 2,28,328 electors in the Bawal Assembly constituency.
As far as Rewari is concerned, the candidature of sitting Congress MLA Chiranjeev Rao is believed to be certain, hence he has not only been addressing poll meetings but also taking out march in the city to expose alleged ‘misdeeds’ of the BJP government in the past decade.
Chiranjeev’s father Capt Ajay Yadav had been a six-time MLA from Rewari and a former minister. At present, he is the national chairperson of the OBC Department of the Congress. In 2019 Assembly polls, Chiranjeev emerged victorious in his debut election by a narrow margin of 1,317 votes in a multi-cornered contest.
Besides Chiranjeev, four others, including Mahabir Masani, Manoj Yadav, Manjit Singh and Ravinder Singh Gujjar have also applied for the Congress ticket while several leaders, including Munju Devi, Sunil Musepur, Randhir Singh Kapriwas, Arvind Yadav, Satish Yadav, Vandana Popli and Sunny Yadav, were vying for the BJP ticket but the party fielded Kosli MLA Laxman Singh Yadav from Rewari.
Public Health and Engineering Minister Dr Banwari Lal is a two-time MLA from Bawal constituency. He won the election second time in previous Assembly polls by a margin of 32,245 votes. Besides Lal, Dr Sanjay Mehra and Krishan Kumar are among the contenders who are lobbying for getting the ticket.
As many as 52 aspirants have applied for the Congress ticket from Bawal. Former minister ML Ranga and Jaswant Singh, Neelam Bhagwaria, Amritkala Tikania, Mukesh Jully (brother of Rajasthan’s Leader of Opposition Tika Ram Jully), Dr Pawan Kumar, Dr Teena Karamvir, Dr Gobind Sharan, Shakuntla Bhandoria, Dr Rajbir Singh, Dr Shashan and Prof Mahesh Kumar are vying for the ticket.
A fierce battle for the party ticket is being witnessed in the Kosli constituency as well. BJP’s Laxman Yadav had defeated Congress’ nominee Rao Yaduvendra Singh by a margin of 38,654 votes in the previous Assembly polls held in 2019. This time, the BJP has fielded Anil Dahina inplace of sitting MLA Laxman Singh Yadav.
Interestingly, 28 aspirants have applied for the Congress ticket but former minister Satish Yadav and former MLA Rao Yaduvendra Singh are believed to be the strong contenders for the party ticket. This Assembly segment falls in the Rohtak Parliamentary Constituency and the Congress candidate Deepender Hooda took a lead of merely two votes over the BJP’s Dr Arvind Sharma from here in the recently held Lok Sabha polls.
