Hisar victory ‘harbinger of change’

Amitabh Shukla / Chandigarh

The Hisar bypoll result has proved to be agony for some political players while it is sheer ecstasy for the HJC and BJP, firmly into a long term alliance in the state. Both the alliance partners now want to keep the winning momentum going in two assembly by-elections in Haryana in the next few weeks.

One person for whom the victory has come out as a personal satisfaction is Harsh Vardhan, in-charge of Haryana BJP who personally stitched the alliance with HJC even as Congress was wooing the party led by Kuldeep Bishnoi and intended to field him from the seat.

But it was deft political management by Harsh Vardhan, a former Minister in Delhi government and former state BJP President which led to an alliance and a victory, which he says is the “harbinger of change” in Haryana politics. National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has got a new member and it is after a long time that the figures of the BJP-led formation have swelled with the addition of a new political party.

“I had the blessings of all the top four leaders of the party – L K Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and Nitin Gadkari when we started talks about a long term alliance. I sat with Kuldeep Bishnoi and told him that let us work like a family,” Harsh Vardhan told The Pioneer.

Asked about the role of Team Anna and whether their appeal to vote against the Congress had any role in the final outcome, the BJP leader replies in the negative. In fact, he says that the campaign of Team Anna proved detrimental to the HJC-BJP candidate as it led to polarisation of a particular caste in favour of INLD nominee Ajay Chautala.

“The moment people (Jat community) saw that Congress was on the way of losing even its deposits, they did not want to do anything with the party. They voted overwhelmingly for Chautala. Instead of helping us, the Anna factor indeed harmed us,” he said, adding that, “they (Team Anna) came to Hisar only in the last 3-4 days while from day one, people of the constituency had made up their mind”. Harsh Vardhan cited the figures from the assembly constituencies to buttress his point.

On the poor victory margin of Bishnoi, the state BJP in-charge said the alliance lost over 37000 votes by default. “One of the candidates Om Prakash, who had been put up by INLD had an election symbol (road roller) which was deceptively similar to tractor of Bishnoi. This candidate hails from Karnal and had nothing to do with Hisar but he got 27802 votes. Then, there were four candidates with the name of Kuldeep who together polled 9807 votes,” he explained.

Though Harsh Vardhan admitted that there could be a perception in the state that this alliance (HJC-BJP) is pro non-Jat communities, he said that several leaders of the Jat community are with the party. He rattled several names of state leaders from the dominant Jat community who are firmly with the BJP saying that the party was with all sections and did not believe in the parochial method of looking at politics. He, nevertheless, hinted that the state has been under successive regimes be it by the INLD or the Congress where the chief minister was from the Jat community and the non-Jats were reacting to the misgovernance.

Claiming that the alliance has gone down well with the cadres and leaders of the BJP, the state BJP in-charge said the next target of the alliance is to emerge victorious in the by-elections of Adampur (which Kuldeep Bishnoi will vacate) and Ratia which is vacant following the death of INLD MLA Gian Chand Odh. (19.10.2011)

http://dailypioneer.com/nation/14288-hisar-victory-harbinger-of-change.html