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Haryana assembly polls: Clashes, bogus voting mar polling at Hisar; Congress' pride at stake

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Polling day can be maddening and violent in places where fake pride is at stake, and Hisar did not prove to be an exception to this norm on Wednesday.

Violent clashes marred voting at various polling booths amidst reports of bogus polling at the behest of Congress candidate Savitri Jindal. 

Polling booths number 114 and 115, and 102 and 103 at ECI hospital in an industrial area dominated by workers of the Jindal Group, and polling booths number 94 and 95 at the community centre in Urban Estate witnessed frequent interventions of police and election observers to check whether bogus voting was taking place.

Although, the Election Commission did not countermand elections at any booth, the presence of several youths around Congress polling agent tables and the frequent skirmishes at the polling booths were proof enough that all was not well in the Jandal bastion.  

Chairman and managing director of Jindal Steel, Ratan Jindal, was himself out in the field for hours, coaxing voters in the industrial areas and at the ITI to vote.

Despite the fact that the incumbent Hooda government has not performed badly - barring the infamous case of Robert Vadra in which Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is alleged to have favoured him in annexing and selling land in cahoots with the DLF - there was an obvious tension in the Haryana Congress camp.

The reasons for Congress being jittery were apparent and obvious. 

Fresh from the recent drubbing at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the recently held Lok Sabha elections, in which BJP virtually swept the polls by cornering seven out of 10 seats, the incumbent Congress was jittery of the fact that the Modi wave might once again do significant damage. Adding to their woes were the successful electoral rallies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that had made a perceptible change in the attitude of voters, especially those living in urban centres.

What added to Congress' worries in Hisar, astute polls observers in Haryana say, was the fact that votes of both of the Baniya (trader) and Punjabi community are deeply fragmented this time.

The Punjabi and Baniya votes account for approximately 46,000-47,000 votes and are divided between Savitri Jindal, Kamal Gupta of the BJP and Gautam Sardhana of the Haryana Janhit Congress. 

"Although vote count of Savitri Jindal usually starts at 20,000 plus because of the captive industrial work force, she is doing badly in the city area where votes are getting sharply divided. The triangular fight can turn out to be a photo finish between the three. The vote difference between the winner and first loser may not be more than 3,000-4,000," said Siddharth Kaushik, a political observer.

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