In BJP’s list of eight for Haryana, five MPs retained

CHANDIGARH: The central election committee of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has relied on the five sitting MPs as well as three recommendations of chief minister (CM) Manohar Lal Khattar while releasing the list of eight candidates for Haryana.


In 2014, BJP had won seven seats — Ambala, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Sonipat, Bhiwani, Gurgaon and Faridabad. INLD managed to wrest Sirsa and Hisar and the Congress could get only Rohtak.

The sitting MPs included this time are Union minister Rao Inderjit Singh and Krishan Pal Gujjar from Gurgaon and Faridabad parliamentary constituencies.

The MPs seeking re-election include two-time MP Ratan Lal Kataria from Ambala, Ramesh Chander Kaushik from Sonipat and Dharamvir Singh from the Bhiwani-Mahendergarh.

Kalraj Mishra, the Haryana in charge for

Lok Sabha elections

, said that the list has been prepared after deliberations and feedback from the field. “The candidates will ensure clean sweep in the polls,” said Mishra The new faces introduced by the BJP include CM Khattar’s blue-eyed boys, Sanjay Bhatia from Karnal and Haryana’s labour minister Nayab Singh Saini. Sunita Duggal, who unsuccessfully contested assembly elections from Ratia, is party’s choice for Sirsa parliamentary constituency.

With the announcement of the candidates, BJP put an end to the speculations about former MP Arvind Sharma and Union minister Birender Singh’s bureaucrat son Brijendera Singh, who, it was rumoured, would be contesting from Karnal and Sonipat.

Rao Inderjit Singh will be seeking entry to

Lok Sabha

for the fifth time. The politics of Gurgaon revolves around Rao’s family as his father was a former CM of Haryana. He is likely to be faced with former minister Ajay Singh Yadav or his son Rao Chiranjeev from the Congress. Rao had defeated Zakir Hussain of Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) with a margin of over 2.71 lakh votes. The Congress had finished a poor third.

Similarly, Krishan Pal Gujjar is likely to face former MP Avtar Singh Badhana or Sara Pilot, wife of senior Congress leader Sachin Pilot. Gujjar had the biggest margin of 4.66 lakh votes to defeat sitting MP Avtar Singh Badhana of Congress in 2014. Now, Gujjar is faced with local opposition. He was shown black flags during the Vijay Sankalp rally chaired by BJP’s national leader and in charge for Lok Sabha From Sonipat, Kaushik is expected to face ex CM Bhupinder Hooda or his wife Asha Hooda. Other probables include Kuldeep Sharma, the former speaker and MLA from Gannaur.

Meanwhile, AAP and Congress has termed the list of candidates as “betting on failed ones”.