SOUTH HARYANA AND BJP : THE LOTUS IS READY TO BLOOM AGAIN IN AHIRWAL

As the mercury is rising with each passing day, the political temperature of the country is also soaring ahead of the 2024 general elections. In Haryana, votes will be polled in the sixth phase of elections. Taking an early start, the BJP has already declared the list of its candidates for the Lok Sabha elections. While Congress is yet to declare the final list of its candidates, rumors signal the internal factionalism in the state unit of Congress for the delay. The fight is on for all the 10 seats of Haryana between both parties but one region that already seems going on the side of BJP is the Ahirwal region. The region is dominated by the Yadavs also known as Ahirs (so the name Ahirwal) along with Jats and Gujjars in some pockets. South Haryana includes 3 important seats Bhiwani-Mahendargarh, Gurugram, and Faridabad. Notably, BJP won all the 3 seats of the region in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections along with the 7 other seats of the state making it ten out of ten.

For 2024, BJP has fielded the political maverick of South Haryana, Rao Inderjit Singh from the Gurugram seat. Gurugram seems an easy win for the 74-year-old parliamentarian as his popularity has reached new heights after the inauguration of AIIMS in Majra near Rewari earlier this year. For the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh seat which includes both Jats and Yadavs in the majority, the saffron party once again decided to go with Dharambir Singh who defeated Shruti Chaudhary in 2019, the forgotten young Turk of Haryana congress, with more than the margin of 4 lakh votes. As per some trustable sources the congress party is reluctant to field Shruti again from the Bhiwani-Mahendargarh seat because of her last debacle against Dharambir Singh.

While from Faridabad the BJP decided to go with the trusted foot soldier Krishan Pal Gurjar who won in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections with a margin of more than 6 lakhs. From Faridabad, congress is considering the name of Mahendra Pratap Singh who is also Gurjar to give a tough fight to the BJP. If rumors are to be believed, the Congress party is thinking of putting its cash on actor Raj Babbar for the Gurugram constituency, which will also make the contest relatively easy for the Rampura House scion.

The name of Capt. Ajay Yadav was also heard in political circles for the Gurugram seat but he seems to be lagging in the current political scenario. Nonetheless, among all the major seats of Haryana, Lotus seems completely ready to bloom again in south Haryana. Also, it will be interesting to see how Narendra Modi and the top brass of the BJP campaign in south Haryana, from where PM Modi started his election campaign in 2014.