As Haryana enters the last leg of campaigning ahead of polling on October 5, the two main parties – the BJP and the Congress – are beset with the challenge posed by rebel candidates contesting against the official candidates. Despite some intense efforts to make the rebel candidates withdraw or announce their support for the official candidates, the former had not relented. Both parties have expelled over 30 such candidates.
When the votes are counted on October 8, the performance of these candidates would decide the outcome of final tally. Most of the seats are facing multi-cornered contests, as apart from the ruling BJP and its main rival, the Congress, the INLD-BSP and JJP-ASP alliances are also in the fray. This has made main parties sweat for the last-minute voter outreach. During the 2019 assembly elections, there were 25 out of the 90 seats where the victory margin was less than 5,000 votes, including 10 where the margin was below 2,000. This shows that this time, the contest may be even sharper as rebels from both parties are contesting in one-third of the total seats.
The stakes are running high for the BJP which had changed its chief minister six months ago to fight the anti-incumbency of its 10-year-rule. Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini got six months to govern. Less than a week to go before the polling, the BJP expelled eight rebels from the party for six years after they filed nominations as independents. The prominent among them being former minister Ranjit Chautala. He is the brother of former deputy PM Devilal. There was even a rebel candidate against Saini from Ladwa seat, Sandeep Garg. He has also been expelled. The other prominent candidates are Naveen Goyal who is contesting from Gurgaon, Kehar Singh Rawat from Hathin and former MLA Devendra Kadyan, Zile Ram Sharma from Assandh seat, Radha Ahlawat from Meham, former minister Bachan Singh Arya from Safido.
The country’s richest woman candidate Savitri Jindal, who joined the BJP early this year, too, is contesting as an independent from her “family” seat of Hisar, from where she had won twice, and earlier also represented by her husband. Her son, Navin Jindal, is currently Lok Sabha MP from Kurukshetra, who too had joined BJP ahead of the general elections.
The Congress which registered its resurgence in the state as it won five out of the 10 Lok Sabha seats is facing the rebel trouble. Like Hisar, Ambala Cantt seat offers an interesting contest. Chitra Sarwara is contesting as an independent here, while her father, a four-time MLA, is contesting as an official Congress candidate from the neighbouring Ambala city seat. The Congress expelled 10 rebel candidates from the party on September 29, including Sarwara. A day earlier, it had expelled 13 leaders.
The high number of rebels are a problem for the parties. “They can cause an upset in a close contest,” a BJP leader said. This means that the BJP will now be relying on its cadre, booth workers, and even the RSS volunteers to reach out to the voters and the supporters of the rebel candidates so that the votes don’t get divided. It’s a tall order. How much these candidates impact the outcome will be known on October 8.