The countdown for the assembly elections in Haryana has begun and with the the polling scheduled on October 5 for the 15th assembly general election, both the major political parties of the state – the principal opposition Congress and saffron BJP have fielded candidates on 89 seats each out of the total 90 assembly seats of the state. Ahead of the polls, there was a fierce competition for tickets in BJP and especially the main opposition party Congress. The situation was such that about more than 2500 applications were received for 90 assembly seats in Haryana Congress. On not getting or the denial of the ticket, many leaders and workers of both the political parties, Congress and BJP, rebelled from their respective parties and filed nominations for the election as independents. Even after several days of withdrawal of candidature in Haryana assembly elections, neither the Congress party nor the BJP›s top leadership has taken any strict action against such rebel leaders of the party, such as expelling them from the primary membership of the party for six years. Political analysts opine that it clearly seems both the Congress and BJP political parties feel that after the election results are declared on October 8, they may need to take the support of such rebel leaders who fought as independents and won the elections to form the government.
The Congress in Haryana has more than two dozen rebel candidates in the fray from 19 assembly constituencies, including former MLAs. The Congress has suspended only a few rebels so far including Chitra Sarwara from Ambala Cantonment, Rajesh June from Bahadurgarh and Sharda Rathore from Ballabhgarh assembly constituency. Similarly, Abhijeet and Neelam Agarwal from Bhiwani, Vijay Jain from Panipat Rural, social media influencer Harsh Chikara from Gohana, Dr. Kapoor Narwal from Baroda and Virendra Ghogaria from Uchana Kalan are also contesting against Congress candidates. Similarly, despite all the efforts of the BJP, the rebels have not left the electoral field. Among the rebel BJP leaders is industrialist Savitri Jindal who was denied a ticket from Hisar assembly constituency. Jindal and Gautam Sardana are contesting against party candidate Dr. Kamal Gupta. Apart from this, rebel BJP leaders Ranjeet Singh from Rania, Shashi Ranjan Parmar from Tosham, Devendra Kadyan from Ganaur, Nayan Pal Rawat and Deepak Dagar from Prithla, Sandeep Garg from Ladwa, Priya Asija from Bhiwani, Prashant Sunny from Rewari, Jasvir Deswal from Safidon, Amit from Beri, Radha Ahlawat from Meham, Satbir Singh from Jhajjar, Dinesh Kaushik from Pundri, Vinod Nirmal and Anand Rana from Kalayat and Satyawan Shera from Israna have joined the fray.
Pertaining to a question if a party leader or worker resigns from the primary membership of the party due to not getting a party ticket or ticket being cut and contests the election as an independent candidate against the official candidate of the party, can his original party still take action against such rebel leader? Political analyst Hemant Kumar says that since the organization and party constitution of every political party is above any individual, therefore, if a party leader or worker quit the party and contests the election against the official candidate of his party, then his original party has the right to expel such rebel leader from the primary membership of the party for six years.
In continuation to aforesaid it is pertinent to mention that 5 years ago, when the general elections of the outgoing 14th Haryana Legislative Assembly were held in October 2019, Chaudhary Nirmal Singh of the Congress Party, who was a former minister in the state government and four-time MLA from the then Naggal seat of Ambala, and his daughter Chitra Sarwara, both were denied Congress Party tickets from Ambala City and Ambala Cantt Assembly seats respectively, despite which they filed nominations as independent candidates against the official candidates of the Congress Party from those two seats, due to which ten days before the polling, the then State President of the Congress Party, Kumari Selja, expelled a total of 16 rebel leaders of the party including them from the primary membership of the Congress Party for 6 years. After that, both of them first formed their own political party in the name of Haryana Democratic Front and got it registered with the Election Commission and after that in April, 2022, both of them joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). In December, 2023, both of them left the AAP. Thereafter, in January 2024, father-daughter duo Nirmal-Chitra returned to the party only four and a quarter years after their expulsion from the Congress party.The BJP and Congress have not fielded their candidates on two seats- Sirsa and Bhiwani respectively . Congress party has not fielded any party candidate from Bhiwani seat of the state in support of comrade Om Prakash who is contesting election from CPI (M) i.e. Communist Party (Marxist), while the BJP candidate from Sirsa assembly seat, Rohtash Jangra who had filed nomination from BJP, withdrew his nomination on 16th September i.e. the last day of withdrawal of candidature.
