Lone INLD MLA Abhay to contest LS polls from K’shetra

INLD general secretary and Ellenabad MLA Abhay Singh Chautala will contest the Lok Sabha elections from Kurukshetra seat, party announced on Saturday.

The announcement was made by the party’s national vice-president Prakash Bharti during a press conference in Kurukshetra.

Bharti said that president Om Prakash Chautala had formed a committee, under him, including former MLA Shyam Singh Rana and others, to submit a report after consultation with party units in the 10 Lok Sabha constituencies.

“With this, the president decided that MLA Abhay Singh Chautala will contest from Kurukshetra. Discussions are underway on the rest of the nine seats. The party organisation is ready and we are already campaigning. We will raise the voice of farmers, labourers, employees and other sections of the society,” he added.

This comes almost a week after Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) national convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann launched party’s Lok Sabha campaign at Kurukshetra with the tagline, “Badlenge Kurukshetra, badlenge Haryana, ibke INDIA ko jitana”.

The AAP and the Congress will fight the Lok Sabha polls in alliance in Haryana. Under the tie-up, the AAP will contest from the lone Kurukshetra seat of the total 10 parliamentary seats in the state.

AAP’s state president Sushil Gupta is the INDIA bloc’s candidate from the seat.

While Saini is likely to contest assembly bypolls from Karnal seat, BJP is yet to announce any candidate from the Kurukshetra seat.

In their second list released on Wednesday, the BJP gave tickets to their candidates on six of 10 seats.

Part of the agrarian GT Road belt, the region remains a hotbed of issues concerning peasants, commission agents and merchants with firebrand farmer’s leader Gurnam Singh Charuni also being a voter on the seat.

However, with the advent of Geeta Jayanti Mohatsav at international level, the saffron party will be banking hugely on religious lines apart from the government schemes under “Modi Ki Guarantee”.

INLD that once ruled the state under Om Prakash Chautala as chief minister has currently one MLA in the assembly, Abhay Singh Chautala, representing Ellenabad seat of Sirsa district, which is considered a Chautala-clan stronghold.

After winning in the 2019 assembly polls, Chautala, a three-time legislator, had resigned on January 27, 2021, in protest against the controversial three farm laws that led to a year-long agitation on the Delhi borders.

However, in the by-polls held in November 2021, Chautala managed to retain the seat.

A vocal critique of the ruling BJP government, earlier with JJP, led by his estranged brother Ajay Chautala, he has cornered his nephew and former deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala on a number of occasions during the assembly sessions.

He also had a run-in with speaker Gian Chand Gupta and former chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar multiple times.