After all parties declared the names of contestants, the ruling and opposite factions continue to put their best to win the Ellenabad by-election battle to be slated on October 30, 2021. Amid this, what experts opine is that caste factor is most likely to play a crucial role as even most of the parties have decided their candidates keeping in view the same. It is pertinent to mention that Ellenabad is a Jat dominated assembly seat and the community constitutes nearly 50 percent of the total voters.
The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) once again has fielded Abhay Chautala, a candidate from Jat community, who won the seat in assembly election held in October 2019 by a margin of 12000 votes as he got 57055 votes while the Congress which exists as main ruling party in the state also fielded another Jat candidate namely Pawan Beniwal who had contested the last assembly election on the ticket of the BJP and remained on second position against Abhay Chautala getting nearly 45000 votes.
Contrary to the expectations, the ruling BJP has come with a decision to field a non-Jat candidate Govind Kanda who hails from Baniya Community and he is the joint candidate of the BJP and its partner JJP as both are running the government in alliance. Thus, bypoll would determine influence and popularity of contesting candidates as well as their parties. Although the JJP was expected to field a joint contestant on behalf of both parties but same could not take place in view of the changing political climate. The BJP had to look for another candidate after the former contestant Pawan Beniwal quit the party in support of agitating farmers against the agriculture laws brought into existence by the Union Government of India.
Thus fielding two Jat contestants and one non-Jat candidate in the by-poll indicates a lot about their election strategy. No one can deny that the Jot community does not seem in much favour of ruling the BJP-JJP after the above mentioned laws were introduced and agitation regarding the same is still going on. So in view of the present situation, most of the Jat voters are likely to be divided among the INLD and the Congress. Although the ruling parties continue to do a lot to woo the Jat voters.
Apart from this, the BJP strategists were believed to mull a lot over finalisation of the contestant that if the Congress had fielded a Jat contestant to fight the election, the Jat voters are most likely to be divided among the Congress and the INLD.
