Haryana polls: BJP eyes hat-trick, Cong a comeback

PTI Chandigarh: The fate of Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Vinesh Phogat of the Congress besides JJP’s Dushyant Chautala and 1027 other candidates will be decided on Saturday as elections to the 90-member Haryana assembly will be held with over 2 crore people eligible to vote. The ruling BJP is eyeing a hat-trick of wins in the state while the Congress is hoping to make a comeback after a decade. Counting of votes will be held on October 8. Haryana’s Chief Electoral Officer Pankaj Agarwal said 2,03,54,350 voters, including 8,821 centurions, are eligible to exercise their franchise and the voting will be held from 7 am to 6 pm. A total of 1,031 candidates are contesting in all 90 assembly constituencies, including 101 women.

Among these candidates, 464 are contesting as independent. A total of 20,632 polling booths have been set up for voting, Agarwal said on Friday. The key contesting parties in the fray are BJP, Congress, AAP, INLD-BSP and JJP-Azad Samaj Party. The high-octane campaign came to an end Thursday evening. The BJP’s campaign was spearheaded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who addressed four rallies, where he attacked the Congress on several issues and said they kept every matter important for the country entangled, including the Ram temple issue. He also said corruption runs in veins of the Congress and alleged it has “turned into a party of ‘dalals’ (middlemen) and ‘damad’ (son-in-law)”.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also addressed many public meetings where he asserted that a “Congress storm” is on its way in Haryana and his party would form the government which will be one for the poor and farmers, and a ‘mohabbat ki dukan’ will be opened in every corner of the state. In the previous assembly polls in 2019, the BJP had won 40 seats, the Congress 31 and JJP 10. The Congress has left the Bhiwani assembly seat for its INDIA bloc partner CPI(M) while the BJP is not contesting the Sirsa seat, from where Haryana Lokhit Party chief Gopal Kanda is seeking re-elecion.