Amitabh Shukla /
Hisar Lok Sabha bye-election would be the first election in the country which would be fought in the shadows of anti-graft crusader Anna Hazare. The outcome of the polls clearly has the potential to force the contesting political parties redraw their strategy, particularly the Congress whose opposition to Hazare and his Jan Lokpal Bill is no secret.
Hazare has said that he will visit Hisar or send a message to the voters to vote against the party if Congress does not come out with its stand on the Jan Lokpal Bill and does not declare that the Bill will be passed in the Winter Session of Parliament. The deadline which Anna has given to the Congress is Dussehra which falls on Thursday, seven days ahead of polling. According to the anti-graft crusader, Hisar is the first step of his campaign and it will continue for the Assembly elections of
If the Congress wins despite Hazare’s clarion call to the voters to vote for the non-Congress candidates, the fate of Jan Lokpal Bill could well be imagined. The ruling party would be emboldened to think that the crowd which Hazare got at Ramlila Maidan was only a fluke, a flash in the pan and does not translate into votes. However, a Congress defeat would trigger a serious thinking in the grand old party on how to deal with the ability of Hazare to sway public opinion and translate it into votes against the party.
In fact, even if the shadow of Hazare were not there on the polls, it was not a cakewalk for the Congress. The party is fighting anti-incumbency in the state, battling corruption charges at the national level, witnessing bickering amongst its ministers and stood third in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, behind Bhajan Lal and the Indian National Lok Dal. Now, when Hazare is indeed a factor, the reaction of the Congress has been rather strange.
Congress candidate Jai Prakash, who has won from the seat thrice and lost an equal number of times, says that the Anna factor would not have any impact in the elections. He goes on to say that Anna’s movement against corruption would indeed help him as his opponents are corrupt. AICC General Secretary in-charge of the state B K Hariprasad has only negative platitude for Team Anna and has been voicing them in no uncertain terms from the very beginning.
Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has been camping in Hisar for several days now, clearly indicating how seriously he takes the elections. His son and Rohtak MP Deepinder Hooda is on the campaign trail and so are his colleagues in the Haryana Cabinet and loyalists of the CM in the party. Even those who are opposed to Hooda in state politics like Birender Singh and Kiran Chaudhary made their presence felt in the constituency as the party high command could consider it otherwise in a high decibel election.
It could be a mere bye-election which might not affect the ruling party at the Centre, except adding another seat to its kitty, but the kind of attention and priority it has got in Haryana suggests that it is indeed a matter of “political do or die” for the ruling party.
The local channels are flooded with advertisement on why the people of Hisar should vote for the Congress and what has the Hooda government done for the people of the state in the last almost seven years as compared to the previous regime of Om Prakash Chautala. Government is on overdrive, ministers are camping in Hisar, instead of their offices in
http://dailypioneer.com/nation/11415-hisar-bypoll-outcome-to-give-clearer-picture-of-anna-clout.html
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