Haryana elections: ‘Inauspicious’ time to file nominations; leaders dither

It is election season in Haryana and candidates across big parties are in a quandary because of the 17-day Shraadh period, believed to be an inauspicious time to start a new work, in this case their filing of nomination.

While the Congress has not even announced its candidates to this day, all main contenders of the Bharatiya Janata Party BJP and the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) seem to have Shraadh on their mind, as they will file their papers only after September 24 during the auspicious nine-day Navratras beginning from Thursday.

The INLD which has now announced all 88 candidates, released its first list of 62 on August 1, second of 11 on August 21, third of eight on September 20, and named the rest on September 23. The BJP declared 43 names on September 10 and 47 on September 20, but none of the main candidates had filed nomination, because of the Shraadh factor apparently.

The filing of nomination that began on 20 will continue until September 27. “Sabki apni marzi hai, hamare kuchh ek logon ne, jaise Mohammad Ilyas ne, bhar diya hai, (Everyone has free will; some of our people, such as Mohammad Ilyas, have filed (the nomination),” said INLD state president Ashok Arora. Ilyas filed his papers on Tuesday. He is a Muslim, not bound by the Hindu conventions. “But people like me believe that the Navratra days are auspicious to begin a new task, so I will file my nomination during that time only,” he told HT.

Anil Vij, BJP legislature group leader in Vidhan Sabha, who will run from Ambala Cantt, said it was the Shraadh factor, of course, because of which nominations had been put off to Navratras. “Yeh hamari Hindu sanskriti hai, hamein manyaton mein vishwas rakhna hai aur hum uske anusaar hi kaam karenge, (It is our Hindu culture, and we have to keep faith in its conventions,” he added.