Congress’s big win in Rohtak sets alarm bells ringing for BJP ticket aspirants

Ravinder Saini

Rohtak, June 5

The landslide victory of the Congress in the Rohtak Lok Sabha elections has set alarm bells ringing for the BJP’s sitting MLA and contenders for the party ticket in the upcoming Assembly elections in the state.

BJP leaders’ ‘dismal’ performance in their Assembly segments may spoil their plan to get ticket as the party state leadership had already sent out a message across the state to its MLAs and ticket aspirants that their performance in the Lok Sabha elections would be kept in mind while deciding names for the Assembly elections due in October.

Congress candidate Deepender Hooda romped home with a giant margin of 3.45 lakh votes. He took lead over BJP nominee Dr Arvind Sharma in all nine assembly segments, falling in the Rohtak parliamentary constituency.

In these segments, the BJP has lone MLA, Laxman Yadav, from Kosli of Rewari district. Apart from Yadav, the responsibility of ensuring good performance of the party in the Lok Sabha elections was on the shoulders of three former MLAs — Manish Grover (Rohtak), Om Prakash Dhankar (Badli), Naresh Kaushik (Bahadurgarh) — and top leaders of other Assembly segments but they could not ensure victory of the party candidate from their respective area.

The Congress got a massive lead of 77,242 votes from Garhi Sampla-Kiloi, 55,644 from Beri, 53,310 from Meham, 46,947 from Badli, 43,385 from Jhajjar, 39,664 from Kalanaur, 21,641 votes from Bahadurgarh and 4,998 votes from Rohtak.

Deepender won the Kosli segment with just two votes while the BJP’s Sharma took a massive lead of 74,980 over him in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Deepender polled 83,422 votes while Sharma got 83,420 votes.

“Besides the candidate, the Lok Sabha polls were also the litmus test for aspirants of the party ticket for upcoming Assembly elections. All these leaders toiled to woo voters but the poll results and winnability of the aspirant will definitely be kept in mind while allotting the ticket. The Lok Sabha elections have also given us an idea about the strength and weakness of the party leaders in all Assembly segments,” said a senior BJP leader on the condition of anonymity.

He said the party had a process to assess performance of the leaders, their popularity and acceptability among the masses. “Since the Assembly elections are not far, the process will be initiated soon to single out winnable candidates on time,” he added.

The Congress has seven out of nine MLAs in the Rohtak parliamentary constituency. The MLAs are buoyed by the victory of Deepender Hooda from their area with a huge margin. “This time, the Congress’s lead over the BJP has doubled in a majority of the Assembly segments of Rohtak parliamentary constituency so all MLAs are enthused and also quite hopeful of being made the party nominee again in the upcoming Assembly elections,” said a Congress leader.

LS elections were litmus test for aspirants

Besides the candidate, the Lok Sabha polls were also a litmus test for party aspirants in the upcoming Assembly elections. The poll results and winnability of the aspirants will definitely be kept in mind while allotting the ticket — Senior BJP leader