Tough triangular fight on cards in Haryana's Adampur

Tribune News Service

Deepender Deswal

Hisar, October 3

A tough battle is on the cards in the hot seat Adampur in the byelection announced by the Election Commission of India today.

The polling will take place on November 3 and the results will be announced on November 6. The ruling BJP, which is likely to nominate Kuldeep Bishnoi or his son Bhavya for the contest, will be facing challenge from a rejuvenated Congress, resurgent INLD and the AAP, which is riding on its recent success in Punjab.

Bhajan Lal family’s bastion since 1968

• Adampur is the longest loyal seat to one political family
• It has elected a member of the Bhajan Lal family to the Assembly 15 times in a row.
• Late CM and Cong leader Bhajan Lal started his political career from this Assembly segment in 1968
• He won the seat consecutively in 1972, 1977,1982
• His wife Jasma Devi got elected in 1987
• Again, Bhajan Lal won the seat in 1991 and 1996

It will be the 16th test for Bhajan Lal’s family for whom Adampur has become a family bastion since 1968.

Political functions and new joining of workers in the Congress, BJP and AAP have already heated up the political temperature in the Adampur segment. After the visits of the Congress Rajya Sabha MP Deepender Hooda and Siksha Yatra of the AAP, Kuldeep Bishnoi, too, had hit the track of Adampur and visited his supporters.

The byelection was necessitated after the sitting MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi, who was elected on the Congress ticket in 2019, joined the BJP in August this year and resigned from the Assembly. His son Kuldeep Bishnoi debuted in politics in the 1998 byelection by winning the family stronghold. Bhajan Lal again won from here in 2000 and 2005.

However, Kuldeep formed a separate regional outfit, Haryana Janhit Congress (Bhajan Lal), in 2007 when the Congress denied the chief ministerial post to his father Bhajan Lal after the Congress’ win in 2005. In the next byelection held in 2008, Bhajan Lal contested on the HJC (BL) ticket and won the seat again.

The seat again fell vacant following the demise of Bhajan Lal in 2011 when Kuldeep Bishnoi’s wife Renuka Bishnoi made her political debut and won the seat for the HJC (BL). The next two assembly elections – 2014 and 2019 – too were won by Kuldeep Bishnoi.

This is for the fourth time when Adampur is going to the byelection as previously three by-elections were held in 1998, 2008 and 2011, respectively. Prof SS Chahar, a political expert, stated that Bhajan Lal had emerged from the grassroots and nursed the constituency like his home. “He had the longest tenure as Chief Minister of Haryana which turned Adampur as the centre of power in state politics,” he said.

Cong win certain, claims Hooda

Ex-CM Bhupinder Hooda has welcomed the announcement of the Adampur bypoll and claimed that the Congress victory was certain. “The BJP-JJP has no achievement to showcase in Adampur and entire Haryana. Every section is unhappy with its policies.

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