Haryana set to vote for 10 Lok Sabha, one Assembly byelection

As many as 223 candidates including 207 men and 16 women, are in the fray for the Parliamentary election

Polling officials check EVMs and other election materials before leaving for their respective polling booths, on the eve of the sixth phase of Lok Sabha polls, at a distribution center, in Gurugram, on May 24, 2024. | Photo Credit: PTIPTI

With polling for the 10 Parliamentary constituencies in Haryana and a byelection for one constituency all set to be held on Saturday, elaborate security, and other arrangements have been set in place for voting across the State, where 2,00,76,786 voters will decide the fate of the candidates.

As many as 223 candidates including 207 men and 16 women, are in the fray for the Parliamentary election. Voting will be held from 7 a.m. and continue till 6 p.m. The byelection would also be held for the Karnal Assembly seat on which Nayab Singh Saini, who replaced Manohar Lal as Chief Minister is contesting. There are nine candidates in the fray for the by-poll.

To ensure the peaceful conduct of the polling process, over 35,000 Haryana police personnel, 112 companies of paramilitary forces, and over 24,000 home guards have been deployed across the State, according to an official statement.

Haryana’s Chief Electoral Officer Anurag Agarwal said a total of 20,031 polling stations have been set up in the State, which includes 19,812 permanent and 219 auxiliary polling stations. Among these, 5,470 polling stations have been set up in urban areas and 14,342 polling stations have been set up in rural areas, he said, adding that 176 model polling stations have been established. “There are 99 polling stations which will be operated entirely by women staff. Apart from this, 96 polling stations will be manned by youth employees, and 71 polling stations manned by Person with Disability (PwD) employees,” he said.

After the State saw an intense poll campaigning, Haryana is expected to witness practically a direct contest between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress party. The BJP is toiling to repeat its 2019 performance of sweeping all the Lok Sabha seats, while for Congress, the key challenger, the polls are a fight to revive the party in the State.

The Congress, which faced a drubbing in the 2019 Parliamentary election is contesting the general election in a seat-sharing arrangement with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as the Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc partner. The AAP is contesting one - the Kurukshetra seat - while the Congress is contesting the rest of the nine seats. The BJP is contesting all alone on all the ten seats. Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), the former coalition partner of the BJP, and the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) are also in the fray, however - as both these parties draw their support largely from the agrarian class (primarily the Jat community) - they appear to be competing among themselves to pull their vote bank to stay relevant. Among other parties, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has also fielded its candidates.

The key candidates for Lok Sabha seats include former Chief Minister BJP’s Manohar Lal from Karnal constituency, BJP’s Naveen Jindal, INLD’s Abhay Chautala and AAP’s Sushil Gupta from Kurukshetra seat, BJP’s Ranjit Singh Chautala, Congress’ Jai Prakash and JJP’s Naina Chautala from Hisar seat.

Union Ministers Rao Inderjit Singh and Krishan Pal Gurjar are seeking re-election from Gurgaon and Faridabad, respectively. Congress’ Raj Babbar has been fielded against Mr. Singh from Gurgaon.

Congress has declared former Union Minister Kumari Selja to take on BJP’s Ashok Tanwar from Sirsa reserve seat while from Rohtak, the Congress has fielded Deepender Hooda against BJP’s sitting MP Arvind Sharma.