Kurukshetra: The Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat in Haryana is likely to witness a triangular contest between Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Naveen Jindal, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Sushil Gupta and Abhay Singh Chautala, a member of the influential Chautala family in Haryana.
Industrialist-leader Jindal, who is contesting after a decade, says he wants to turn this constituency of historical and religious significance into a spiritual hub. Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) general secretary and the party’s only MLA Chautala and Aam Aadmi Party’s Haryana unit president Sushil Gupta are also in the fray against Jindal from Kurukshetra constituency.
AAP, a constituent of the opposition alliance ‘India’, is contesting from Kurukshetra seat in Haryana while Congress is contesting from the remaining nine seats. Jindal left the Congress and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in March. While in the Congress, he represented Kurukshetra in the Lok Sabha between 2004-2014.
His late father and well-known industrialist OP Nijdal had also represented Kurukshetra earlier.
This is the first time that BJP has not fielded any candidate from Other Backward Classes (OBC) from this seat.
During the election campaign, opposition candidates are prominently raising the issues of farmers as well as other issues like rising inflation and unemployment to challenge the BJP.
Kurukshetra, about 150 kilometers away from Delhi, is a very important place from historical and religious point of view. It was here that the Mahabharata war was fought. Recently, while talking to ‘PTI-Bhasha’, Nijdal said that his dream is to make Kurukshetra one of the most developed constituencies in the country.
Nijdal said that this constituency is not new to him and he is getting a lot of love and support from the public. He said Haryana has benefited from the BJP’s ‘double engine’ government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has done a lot of work in the last 10 years and has the vision to take the country forward.
Nijdal, chairman of Nijdal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL), has declared movable and immovable assets of himself and his wife Shalu worth about Rs 1,000 crore. The BJP candidate had last week released a ‘vision paper’ sharing his plans for the development of Kurukshetra. He promised to give spiritual and religious identity to Kurukshetra on the world stage.
Taking aim at BJP candidate Naveen Nijdal, AAP candidate Sushil Gupta said, “I want to ask him what major development works he has done in Kurukshetra earlier as MP (2004-2014). BJP used to level coal scam allegations against him but now he is silent on it.”
“Unemployment, inflation, farmers and women issues are the major issues in the constituency,” Gupta told PTI. People want change this time. People are also angry that the BJP government of the state used lathicharge when any section of the society like farmers, sarpanches, employees raised their voice.”
INLD candidate Chautala claimed that various sections of the society were fed up with the BJP governments at the Center and Haryana. Chautala said, “What is the condition of farmers today? They (the government) made big promises to them, but even after the martyrdom of 700 people during the farmers’ protest on the borders of Delhi (against the now repealed agricultural laws), the government is betraying them.” There are 9,38,029 male, 8,50,439 female and 23 transgender voters in Kurukshetra Lok Sabha constituency. The Jat community comprises a large section of the electorate.