Keen contest on cards in Ahir-dominated Ateli seat

Tribune News Service

Advertisement

Mahendragarh, August 28

The BSP has again announced Thakur Attar Lal as its candidate from the Ateli segment of Mahendragarh district for the Assembly elections. Attar Lal had sprung a surprise in the 2019 Assembly poll by securing 37,387 votes and standing runner-up. JJP candidate Samrat had polled 13,191 votes while Congress’s Arjun Singh had got mere 9,200 votes. They remained third and fourth, respectively, in that elections. BJP candidate Sitaram Yadav, who was a new face, had won the Ateli seat by a margin of 18,406 votes.

It will be third consecutive Assembly poll for 60-year-old Attar Lal. He had contested the first Assembly election in 2014 as an Independent candidate and got mere 4,497 votes. At that time, BJP’s Santosh Yadav, a former Deputy Speaker of the Vidhan Sabha, won the seat by a thumping margin of 48,601 votes.

“I have been active in politics for the past around four decades. I started my political career as a student leader and passed LLB from Kurukshetra University. Thereafter, I practiced law at the Punjab and Haryana High Court for a decade,” Attar Lal, a resident of Dhanaunda village, said.

He claimed that he had been quite active politically in the region. “There are 104 villages in the Ateli Assembly segment and I have already covered them,” he added.

Ateli is set to witness an interesting contest this time as senior leaders of both BJP and Congress are keen to try their luck from this Ahir-dominated constituency. Aarti Rao, daughter of Union Minister and Ahir leader Rao Inderjit, is a strong contender for the BJP ticket from Ateli while sitting BJP MLA Sitaram Yadav and former Deputy Speaker of the Haryana Vidhan Sabha Santosh Yadav are also among those vying for the BJP ticket.

Similarly, 27 aspirants have applied for the Congress ticket from Ateli but former minister Rao Narendra and former Chief Parliamentary Secretary Anita Yadav are among the strong contenders.