Haryana Assembly elections are just a month away and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party looks set to trample upon many aspirations as it gets into the final leg of picking candidates for the 90-chair legislative assembly in the state. The BJP is learnt to have decided that it will not give tickets to the immediate kin of sitting MLAs and parliamentarians in Haryana elections, an ANI report said. The move is in line with the party’s stated objection to dynastic politics which has formed the bedrock of its campaign nationally since 2013.
The decision against fielding immediate family members of sitting lawmakers and legislators was taken at a meeting of the party’s Haryana core group which was chaired by Home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and Haryana BJP chief Subhash Barala were also present at the meeting, reported Hindustan Times.
At the meeting, the party also decided against giving tickets to Mayors of municipal corporations as well as chairpersons of zila parishads in order to ensure that others get an opportunity too. Elections in the state are slated for October 21, 2019. The last date of nomination has been set as October 04, 2019 and the counting of votes will be undertaken on October 24.
The move is a break from the past for a state where dynasties characterise its politics since its inception in 1966. Haryana has been dominated by political dynasties which include Devi Lal, Bansi Lal and Bhajan Lal (the Lal triumvirate), Hooda family and the Rao Birender clan.
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The BJP believes that handing tickets to members of a family creates the risk of a monopoly in the state and also leads to despondency among other aspirants, a party leader told HT, adding that the party was keen on giving new faces a chance in the upcoming assembly elections.
However, there could be some exceptions to the norm in the form of Rajya Sabha MP Chaudhary Birender Singh who served as a Union minister in the Narendra Modi-led cabinet from 2016 to 2019. He had quit his position as the union minister and also offered his resignation in April 2019 from the Rajya Sabha seat after his son Brijendra Singh was elected from Hisar. Notably, he had joined the BJP after quitting Congress after four decades. It is likely that Singh’s MLA wife Premlata who represents Uchana will get renominated, the HT report said.
The BJP’s first list of candidates is slated to be released on September 29, setting the stage for the final round of battle for its return to power. BJP had won 47 seats while Congress finished third with 15 seats during the 2014 Haryana assembly elections. The saffron party also swept the state in the Lok Sabha election held earlier this year, winning all 10 seats in the state.