As the upcoming parliamentary elections approach, all political parties are intensifying their efforts to showcase their capabilities and devising various strategies to attract voters and gain political advantage. Both the ruling BJP and the main opposition Congress are making extensive efforts to secure victory for the third consecutive time and to end their respective periods of political exile. It is anticipated that the Election Commission of India (ECI) will announce the parliamentary elections soon, prompting political parties to announce organizational appointments in the state beforehand to bolster their positions.
It is evident from the electoral history of Haryana since its inception that be it ticket distribution or other political developments, the caste faction has played a decisive factor in state politics. Political experts believe that victory in the Lok Sabha elections will largely depend on the face fielded in the battlefield and caste equations. Since the Lok Sabha constituencies have been categorized following the reservation and given this, the caste equations play an important role in the politics of Haryana. In this series, it has also come to light that the list of ruling BJP’s Lok Sabha candidates will be finalized given caste equations on some seats. It is worth mentioning that out of the total 10 Lok Sabha seats, 2 constituencies are reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) in Haryana and 10 candidates are in the fray on these 2 seats staking their claims for the ticket. The list of claimants on the Ambala seat includes Banto Kataria, wife of former MP late Ratan Lal Kataria, Krishna Bedi, former DGP of Haryana BS Sandhu and Amar Singh while there is multi-cornered and tough battle for the ticket among the BJP contenders including Sunita MP Duggal, MP of the ruling party from Sirsa, Ashok Tanwar, who bid a farewell to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and joined the BJP recently , former IPS V Kamaraj, ADGP Shrikant Jadhav and Ravindra Balala.
In this row, it is pertinent to mention that the Jat community which is believed to be upset and disgruntled with the saffron BJP, plays a dominating role in the state politics after the state came into existence in 1966 following its separation from Punjab. In view of the differences and widened rift over several issues, the BJP and the Jats have been at loggerheads and keeping in view this, the BJP is pretty aware of the fact that the disgruntled Jat voters are most likely to cause damage to the party in polls. In such a situation, the party is paying attention and focusing on Jat dominated Lok Sabha seats so that it can field political faces who have influence among the voters from the community.
Of course, BJP contested the Jat dominated Rohtak and Sonipat Lok Sabha seats successfully by fielding Brahmin candidates in 2019, but this time the situation seems to have changed compared to before. From the Rohtak seat, MPs Arvind Sharma, OP Dhankar and Baba Balaknath are contenders for the ticket, while from Sonipat seat, MPs Ramesh Kaushik, Mohan Badoli, Rajeev Jain and Yogeshwar Dutt queue for the ticket Similarly, the list of BJP claimants for the ticket from Bhiwani-Mahendergarh seat includes sitting MP Dharambir, OP Dhankhar, Sudha Yadav , the sitting MLA Abhay Singh Yadav and sitting MP Brijendra, Kuldeep Bishnoi who joined the BJP last year quitting the Congress, Captain Abhimanyu, Ranbir Gangwa are in fray seeking ticket from Hisar parliamentary seat.
Likewise, caste equations do emerge as a decisive factor in Kurukshetra and adjoining Karnal Lok Sabha Seats falling on the GT road belt. The list of the contenders seeking ticket from Karnal seat includes sitting MP MP Sanjay Bhatia, Advocate Vedpal and MLA Harvindra Kalyan. Similarly, everyone is eyeing the adjacent Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat, dominated by the Saini community and the claimants including sitting MP Nayab Saini and former MLA Pawan Saini are seeking ticket. In this row, there are several contenders from the Faridabad and the Yadav-dominated Gurugram parliamentary seats. The list of claimants on Faridabad seats includes sitting MP and union minister for state, Krishan Pal Gurjer, Vipul Goyal and sitting MLA Rajesh Nagar and likewise, the list of candidates staking claims on the ticket from Gurugram includes the sitting MP and the union minister of the state Roa Inderjeet and Sudha Yadav.
It is noteworthy that a caste-based population data was shared by the government last year and prior to this, no such official information was made available. Since the figures of the caste-based population of the state have now come to the fore, all the parties are working on this angle in a bid to woo the voters. It is pertinent to mention that SC and BC communities constitute a sizable chunk of vote bank as well as population which has forced all political parties to focus on the votes belonging to both communities. The data revealed that people from SC and BC category in Haryana constitute about 51 percent of the total vote population. Based on the data, there are a total of 1368365 families of SC category in Haryana which represent 20.71 percent of the total families. Similarly, the number of BC (A) and BC (B) families is 1123852 and 869079 constituting 16.52 percent and 12.78 percent of the total families. Out of the total verified 68 lakh families and 2.83 crore people in Haryana, there are a total of 1368365 SC families and the number of people from the families is 5861131 which constitutes 20.71 percent of the total families. Similarly, the number of people from BC (A) and BC (B) category families is 4793312 and 3797306 constituting 16.93 percent and 13.41 percent respectively. On the other hand, the number of BC (A) and BC (B) category families is 4793312 and 3797306 respectively. It is pertinent to mention that at the same time, the Jats constitute around 30 percent of the total vote bank in Haryana.