Haryana NCP chief Virender Verma files nomination papers
He will be contesting on party symbol against BJP candidate and former chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar and Congress’ youth state president Divyanshu Budhiraja. Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) have also fielded their candidates, while INLD has extended support to Maratha
State president of the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) Maratha Virender Verma on Tuesday filed his nomination papers for the Karnal Lok Sabha seat.
Secretary general of Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) Abhay Chautala was also present.
Verma will contest on party symbol against BJP candidate and former chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar and Congress’ youth state president Divyanshu Budhiraja. Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) have also fielded their candidates, while INLD has extended support to Maratha.
At a joint-party event ahead of nominations, he hit out at the Congress, particularly former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda for not giving him a ticket as part of the alliance, as he is “a winnable candidate.”
“I was the leading contender for the ticket and was even named in a list released earlier that was called fake by Hooda and Udai Bhan (state president). I was told that Hooda had even offered to resign from the party if I was given the ticket,” he told the audience.
Going against the INDIA bloc, Virender Maratha, as he is popularly known, had last week decided to contest the polls after the Congress named Budhiraja.
A Ror community leader, Maratha has a long history of party hopping but has never won an election. He said that he joined the civil services as an HCS officer and resigned in 2003 as an IAS officer (after getting promoted), to form his own front, Ekta Shakti Party.
Verma has contested six elections — four to the Assembly and two to the Lok Sabha. He has been with the BJP, Congress, BSP and now with the NCP.
From Karnal, he had contested his first Lok Sabha election on a BSP ticket in 2009 and managed to gain 28% votes against Congress’ Arvind Sharma, who eventually won for the second term.
Meanwhile, Chautala, who is contesting from Kurukshetra, also cornered Hooda “for going soft on Congress.”
“I’ve seen him during the assembly proceedings, how his party used to walk out on an issue when the BJP remained on the back foot. It was visible how he used to help the BJP. Hooda is a puppet of the BJP. Due to only him, they have named such candidates, which is going to benefit the BJP directly,” Abhay said during his address.
