Except for Khattar, Vij and Dr Banwari, almost entire cabinet was wiped out by Cong, JJP a
As Haryana is heading for Assembly polls on October 1, the spotlight is back on BJP’s navratnas (nine top leaders) – eight of whom were part of then CM Manohar Lal Khattar’s council of ministers and ninth was the state BJP’s president – all faced humiliating defeat leaving the ruling BJP red faced. Consequently, the party failed to reach a majority mark and fell short by six seats in the 90-member House.
Of these nine, six lost to Congress and three to the then JJP candidates. The ruling BJP in Haryana is going to hold its two-day PAC meeting at Gurugram to decide on its list of nominees for the upcoming polls. It will then be clear how many of them would again be fielded by the party.
Apart from then BJP state chief Subhash Barala who lost in Tohana, eight ministers who lost the 2019 Assembly polls include then education minister Ram Bilas Sharma (Mahendragarh), finance and excise minister Capt Abhimanyu (Narnaund), agriculture minister Om Prakash Dhankar (Badli), urban local bodies minister Kavita Jain (Sonipat), transport minister Krishan Lal Panwar (Israna), MoS with independent charge of Cooperation Manish Kumar Grover (Rohtak), MoS with independent charge of social justice and empowerment Krishan Kumar Bedi (Shahbad) and MoS with independent charge of food and supplies Karan Dev Kamboj (Radaur).
Kavita Jain was a two-time MLA (2009 and 2014) lost to Surender Panwar of Congress by over 32,000 votes, Barala lost to JJP’s Devender Babli by a huge margin of over 52,000 votes, Capt Abhimanyu lost by 12,000 votes to JJP’s Ram Kumar Gautam, Krishan Kumar Bedi lost to JJP’s Ram Karan by 37,127 votes, while Ram Bilas Sharma lost to Congress’ Rao Dan Singh by 10,220 votes, Dhankar lost to Congress’ Kuldeep Vats by nearly 9,000 votes, Krishan Lal Panwar lost to Congress’ Balbir Singh by over 21,000 votes, Manish Grover lost to Congress’ BB Batra by over 2700 votes, Krishan Kumar Bedi lost to then JJP’s Ram Karan by over 37,000 votes and Karan Dev Kamboj lost to Congress’ Bishan Lal by over 2500 votes.
Others in the cabinet, including CM Manohar Lal Khattar and then health minister Anil Vij were the only two who could save their seats of Karnal and Ambala cantonment, respectively. Then industries minister Vipul Goel and civil aviation minister Rao Narbir were not fielded by the BJP in 2019. Then a MoS with independent charge of Labour and employment Nayab Singh Saini (incumbent chief minister) was elected to Lok Sabha from Kurukshetra, while Dr Banwari Lal then MoS with independent charge of Public Health Engineering also won from Bawal with a comfortable margin of over 32,000 votes.
Of those who lost, Krishan Lal Panwar and Subhash Barala are in Rajya Sabha while Om Prakash Dhankar is national secretary of the party. In 2020 Dhankar was also appointed as party’s state president in Haryana. Dhankar has recently been appointed as party’s manifesto committee chairman for the upcoming polls.
The others are quite hopeful and are going to go into the poll-campaigning citing their party’s “unprecedented development” and “corruption-free regime”.
BJP stalwart and two-time former state president and a five-time MLA from Mahendragarh, Rambilas Sharma said, “BJP is a party with difference. The parliamentary board decides who will do what. I am a committed soldier of the party for the past 50 years and shall abide by the party’s directions. In the recent Lok Sabha polls, we defeated Congress’ Rao Dan Singh in Mahendragarh by 6372 votes. He trailed in his own polling booth by 146 votes. In all four constituencies under Mahendragarh district, our Lok Sabha candidate Chaudhary Dharambir led by 44,000 votes and we eventually won Bhiwani-Mahendragarh Lok Sabha seat. There is a clear wave here in favour of the BJP.”
Talking to The Indian Express, Capt Abhimanyu who is campaigning in Narnaund these days, said, “Last time, the combinations went against me. Even then, my vote share increased by 20 per cent from 2014 to 2019. INLD’s vote bank got transferred to JJP and their candidate Ram Kumar Gautam’s personal vote bank also added to that.
Congress had never won here in the past 50 years. It is a Jat dominated constituency and had there been a Jat candidate against me in 2019 too, he would not have been able to defeat me. This time, the equation is totally different. We are witnessing a lot of improvement on the ground. As far as the Lok Sabha poll results translating into Vidhan Sabha polls is concerned, it is not the case. Both the elections are totally different”.
When asked, Karan Dev Kamboj told The Indian Express that last time it was different. “The party changed my constituency at the last minute due to which I lost by a very narrow margin. Party’s last 10 years performance will be my main poll-agenda this time. The kind of development that has happened across Haryana is unprecedented. Whichever of the two constituencies, the party will want me to contest, I shall contest from there,” he said.
