Days after losing Rohtak, Arvind hints he was victim of inside job

Ravinder Saini

Rohtak, June 10

A day after his wife expressed displeasure on the role of a former minister in the Lok Sabha polls over a WhatsApp group, now BJP candidate Dr Arvind Sharma, who unsuccessfully contested the election, has left everyone astonished after stating that a leader of the opposition party told him that some BJP leaders had helped him (the latter) in the polls.

The remarks came during a media interaction here on Sunday evening when Sharma was asked about any infighting among the BJP leaders during the elections. He reached Rohtak for the first time after the election results to express gratitude to the party workers and supporters for toiling hard during the polls.

“I happened to meet a leader of the opposition party at a counting centre on June 4 and during a chat with him, he (leader) told me that some BJP leaders helped me a lot in the election, with whom he had not even interacted,” claimed Sharma.On being asked, “Was the loss a result of infighting? Sharma replied, “You can guess for yourselves. I don’t want to call it infighting.”

At the workers’ meet, his supporters raised the issue of mismanagement at the booth level on the day of polling.

Earlier, Sharma, a four-time former MP, also called on the party workers and supporters in Jhajjar and Bahadurgarh town. At the PWD Rest House in Jhajjar, the workers and supporters created a ruckus in front of him, blaming each other for the defeat of the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections.

“The workers expressed their displeasure and said on the day of voting, the booth agents and those who had the responsibility of managing the booths in the area were unavailable at some polling stations in Jhajjar. The workers blamed each other and held those associated with the party’s poll management responsible for the debacle of the party,” said sources.

In Bahadurgarh town, Sharma pondered over the reasons behind his defeat in the elections and also discussed the future strategy keeping in view the Assembly polls that were merely some months away. The party workers pointed towards some local leaders for the poor show of the party.

Notably, Sharma had won in the Rohtak and Bahadurgarh Assembly segments in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls by 19,741 and 5,630 votes, respectively while the Congress candidate Deepender Hooda took a lead of mere 4,649 votes over him in Jhajjar in that election.

But this time, Deepender not only emerged victorious in the Rohtak and Bahadurgarh segments but also his lead rose over nine-fold in the Jhajjar segment. The Congress won from Jhajjar by 43,385 votes, Bahadurgarh by 21,646 votes and Rohtak by 4,998 votes.Addressing the party workers in all three places, Sharma said he was grateful to every worker who left no stone unturned to get maximum votes for the party. “This is the result of their hard work that the party managed to poll 4.38 lakh votes in the Lok Sabha elections. We accept the people’s verdict and will continue to serve them ,” he added.