Riding high on the Lok Sabha sweep (9 of 10 seats), Hooda advanced the assembly poll by seven months and despite strong opposition from senior leaders in the state.
Chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda may have promised the party high command to limit the combined opposition of Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to single-digit strength in the October 13 assembly poll, but the ground reality is different.
While the Congress looks poised for a return in power, several senior party MLAs may find the going tough. Hooda’s claim of a “resounding victory” is largely based on the party’s near-clean sweep in the general election, but an analysis of the Lok Sabha voting pattern shows that the Congress needs to gain lost ground in over a dozen assembly segments it had won with a high margin in 2005 when it bagged 67 of the 90 seats in the state.
Riding high on the Lok Sabha sweep (9 of 10 seats), Hooda advanced the assembly poll by seven months and despite strong opposition from senior leaders in the state, convinced Congress president Sonia Gandhi to allow him to handpick around 75 candidates. On his insistence, the party dropped several sitting MLAs and fielded independents supporting the Hooda government and MLAs who recently deserted INLD.
But the Congress can’t afford to overlook the fact that it trailed significantly in some assembly segments in the Lok Sabha poll. In Uchana Kalan in Jind district, it trailed by over 24,500 votes. Here, finance minister Birender Singh, a known Hooda baiter, faces a formidable challenge from INLD chief and former CM Om Prakash Chautala.
Hissar-Adampur-Nalwa, a pocket borough of the Bhajan Lal family, is another trouble area. Hissar was the only parliamentary seat in the state that the Congress lost in May. It trailed in almost all assembly segments in the constituency where several high-profile party leaders, including former minister Savitri Jindal (Hissar), former MP Jai Prakash (Adampur), former finance minister Sampat Singh (Nalwa), face an acid test.
The Adampur seat is being considered a cakewalk for HJC president Kuldeep Bishnoi, son of Bhajan Lal. In the Nalwa, things look tough for Sampat Singh who faces Bhajan Lal’s wife and HJC candidate, Jasma Devi. Haryana Congress president Phool Chand Mullana too is on a sticky wicket.
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