Releasing its third and biggest list for the Haryana Assembly so far, the Congress has named candidates for 40 of the state’s 90 Assembly constituencies. The list includes Aditya Surjewala, who is the son of Congress’ Rajya Sabha MP Randeep Singh Surjewala, as well as two people who had filed their nomination from the constituencies they wanted to represent even before their names were announced by the party.
With the third list released on Wednesday, the party has named candidates for 81 seats in all, leaving a question mark only on nine remaining seats. The announcement came on a day when the BJP released its final list of three candidates for the polls.
Aditya Surjewala has been fielded from the Kaithal Assembly constituency, from where his father and Congress General Secretary has been elected an MLA at least twice.
From the Palwal constituency, former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s in-law Karan Dalal has been given a ticket and so has Vikas Saharan, son of party MP Jai Parkash, from the Kalayat Assembly constituency. Both of these leaders had filed their nominations before their names were announced by the Congress.
From the Kosali Assembly constituency, the party has denied a ticket to Rao Yaduvender Singh, brother of BJP’s Gurgaon MP and Union Minister Rao Inderjit Singh, and fielded Jagdish Yadav instead. Rao Yaduvender Singh had contested from the constituency in 2019 and lost by a margin of over 38,000 votes.
In the third list, five women have got tickets – Pearl Chaudhary from Pataudi, Anita Yadav from Ateli, Sumita Virk from Karnal, Pooja Chaudhary from Mulana and Parag Sharma from Ballabgarh. Pooja Chaudhary is the wife of Varun Choudhary, who won from Mulana in 2019 and was elected the MP from Ambala in this year’s Lok Sabha elections.
Chander Mohan, the elder son of former chief minister Bhajan Lal and a former deputy minister in the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government, has got the ticket from Panchkula. Sombir Singh, the son-in-law of another former chief minister, Chaudhary Bansi Lal, has been fielded from the Badhra seat.
Voting for all 90 seats in Haryana will take place on October 5 and counting will be held on October 8. The BJP is hoping to retain its hold on power in the Hindi heartland state, which it has ruled since 2014, but is facing a challenge from a resurgent Congress.
What has made the contest more interesting is the fact that the state’s 10 Lok Sabha seats were split evenly between the Congress and the BJP this year after the BJP’s clean sweep in the 2014 general elections.
