Direct contest between Cong, BJP on cards in Jhajjar

Though the BJP has taken a lead over the Congress by announcing its candidates for all four seats in the district, opening the account in this Assembly poll seems to be a challenge to it due to the anti-incumbency factor and the clout of former Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

In the 2019 Assembly elections, the Congress had made a clean sweep here by clinching all four — Jhajjar, Badli, Beri and Bahadurgarh — seats in the district, while the BJP had won two —Badli and Bahadurgarh — out of the four seats in 2014.

A direct contest between the Congress and the BJP is expected in all constituencies of the district, where 8,00,311 voters will decide the fate of the candidates. A total of 807 polling booths have been set up in the district.

The Congress has its two senior leaders — Raghuvir Singh Kadian, former speaker of Haryana Vidhan Sabha, and Geeta Bhukkal, former education minister— who have remained unbeaten for the past five and four Assembly elections, respectively.

Former minister and BJP national secretary Om Prakash Dhankar is his party’s face in the district, who is in the poll fray for the third time from Badli Assembly constituency. Dhankar emerged victorious in 2014 and became the agriculture minister in the then cabinet of Manohar Lal Khattar, but lost in 2019 at the hands of the Congress’s Kuldeep Vats.

This time too, both leaders are set to take on each other in the electoral battle, as the candidature of Vats is believed to be certain. The Badli constituency has 1,86,549 voters, who will decide the winner. A total of 198 polling booths have been set up here.

Bahadurgarh, located on the border of Delhi and Haryana, is the biggest Assembly constituency in Jhajjar district in terms of the number of electors. There are 2,42,025 voters, while 233 booths have been established here for polling. Bahadurgarh is an industrial area where the number of migrant labourers as electors is also considerable.

The Congress has its sitting MLA Rajendra Singh Joon, who has, so far, won three Assembly elections from here and is also a strong contender for the party ticket this time, while the BJP has fielded a newcomer— Dinesh Kaushik, brother of Bahadurgarh former MLA Naresh Kaushik — to counter anti-incumbency. In the previous polls, Joon defeated the BJP’s Naresh Kaushik by a margin of 15,491 votes.

In Beri, a total of 1,82,616 electors will exercise their franchise and 186 polling booths have been established. Veteran leader Dr Raghuvir Singh Kadian has so far contested eight elections from Beri and won six times. The BJP this time has fielded Sanjay Kabalan, who had unsuccessfully contested the last two Assembly elections from Badli. In previous Assembly polls, Raghuvir Kadian had defeated the BJP’s Vikram Kadian from Beri by 12,952 votes.

In Jhajjar (reserve), a direct contest between Congress’ Geeta Bhukkal and the BJP’s Kaptan Singh Birdhana is likely. In the Assembly polls held in 2019, Bhukkal scored a hat-trick by defeating the BJP’s Dr Rakesh Kumar by a margin of 14,999 votes. Jhajjar constituency has a total of 1,89,121 voters, and 190 polling booths have been established.