Chandigarh. The state unit of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Haryana challenged the Congress on Wednesday to declare Kumari Selja as the chief ministerial candidate for the state assembly elections to prove how big a well-wisher she is of the Scheduled Castes (SC). The BJP also said that it declares Nayab Singh Saini, who belongs to the Other Backward Classes (OBC), as the chief ministerial candidate. Saini is the chief ministerial candidate from the BJP for the upcoming assembly elections to be held on October 1.
Haryana BJP posted on social media platform ‘X’ and said, “BJP has made a Chief Minister from backward class. Rahul Gandhi is supporting SC class a lot. (Congress) should declare Selja ji as the Chief Ministerial candidate from Haryana so that it can be known how much of a well-wisher she is for the society.” Selja, MP from Sirsa, is a prominent face of Congress who comes from Dalit community.
It is believed that former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda does not get along with Selja. Hooda had recently said that he is neither tired nor retired, but he also said that after getting a majority in the assembly elections, the Congress high command will decide on who will be the Chief Minister. A few months after winning the Lok Sabha election from Sirsa, former Union Minister Selja had also expressed her desire to contest the upcoming assembly elections and said that she wanted to work in the state, but the high command will take the final decision on this matter.
Meanwhile, reacting to the BJP’s post, Haryana Congress president Uday Bhan told PTI over phone that the ruling party should worry about itself as its government is about to go in the state. Regarding the selection of the chief ministerial candidate, Bhan said that Congress MLAs and the party high command will decide on it only after the election results are out. He also said that the party had earlier put forward leaders from the Dalit community as chief ministerial candidates in four states, including Punjab and Maharashtra.
Bhan said, “The BJP should tell who they have made the Chief Minister from the SC community? It should also tell whether it had declared Bhajan Lal Sharma as the Chief Ministerial candidate while contesting the last assembly elections in Rajasthan? Did it contest the election (in Madhya Pradesh) on the face of Mohan Yadav? Did it contest the 2014 elections in Haryana with Manohar Lal Khattar as its face?” He said that Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of Opposition in Rajasthan Assembly Teeka Ram Julie come from the Dalit community.
Bhan said, “One thing is clear that BJP has accepted that Congress is coming to power in Haryana…” He said, “That is why they are making excuses of many holidays around the polling date on October 1 and are writing letters to the Election Commission asking to postpone the polling for a few days… We are saying that if polling takes place before October 1, we have no objection and we are ready.” The Haryana unit of BJP had written a letter to the Election Commission last week requesting to postpone the polling for the assembly elections on October 1 for some time. In this, holidays before and after the election date were cited, which may reduce voting.