Wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt, IAS officer Brijendra Singh in race for BJP tickets in Haryana

Sources said that the BJP’s central election committee meeting yesterday in Delhi discussed several probable names.
Indian wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt  (File| PTI)
Indian wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt (File| PTI)

CHANDIGARH: Several sitting ministers, MLAs and party leaders of the ruling BJP in Haryana are staking their claims for the Lok Sabha tickets as the party is expected to field new faces in seven out of the total of ten seats in the jat land.

Sources said that the BJP’s central election committee meeting yesterday in Delhi discussed several probable names.

The state election committee had already submitted the panel of probable candidates on all the ten seats in the state to the party high command.

Haryana Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma have been eyeing a ticket from Jat-dominated Bhiwani-Mahendragarh seat.

The party has also shortlisted names of sitting MP Dharmabir, Abhay Singh Yadav and Somvir Sanghwan.

The probable candidates for Hisar Lok Sabha seat are Finance Minister Capt Abhimanyu, Ashok Goyal and recently joined Indian Lok Dal MLA from Nalwa, Hisar Ranbir Gangwa and for the reserved seat of Sirsa names of Punjabi Sufi singer Hans Raj Hans and party leader Sunita Duggal have been submitted.

In the 2014 general elections, BJP contested eight seats out of 10 and left Hisar and Sirsa to its alliance partner at that time, Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) of former CM Bhajan Lal’s son Kuldeep Bishnoi which is now merged into Congress.

Union Minister Birender Singh wants to field his 46-year old son Brijendra Singh, a 1998-batch IAS officer currently posted as managing director, Haryana State Co-operative Supply and Marketing Federation (HAFED) from Sonepat.  

Brijendra had addressed state-level farmers meet in Jind in December 2018 and it was seen as an indication of his keenness to foray into electoral politics.

The other names doing the rounds are of CM’s media advisor Rajiv Jain, party leader Krishna Gahlawat and sitting MP Ramesh Chander Kaushik.

For the prestigious Rohtak parliamentary seats, the names of former three-time MP Arvind Sharma, a prominent Brahmin leader who had recently joined the saffron party after leaving the Congress as he had represented the Sonepat Lok Sabha seat in 1996 as an independent candidate and Karnal Lok Sabha seat in 2004 and 2009 on Congress ticket, Baba Balak Nath and Haryana Agriculture Minister OP Dhankar are being considered.

The party is likely to field wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt from Sonepat or Rohtak as his name was also recommended by the state unit. Dutt, who won the bronze medal in the 2012 Olympic Games said sources said.

For Kurukshetra seat state minister Nayab Singh Saini, MLA Pawan Saini and Dharamvir Dagar are probable candidates. After it's sitting MP Raj Kumar Saini recently floated his own party, Loktantra Suraksha Party (LSP), which recently entered into an alliance with the BSP. 

Sources said that sitting union minister Rao Inderjit Singh from Gurgram or his daughter Arti Rao are all set to get the ticket and another union minister  Krishan Pal Gurjar from Faridabad parliamentary seat.

The sitting MP from Ambala Rattan Lal Kataria is now certain to get the ticket the name of his wife Banto was also doing the rounds.

For the Karnal Lok Sabha seat names of Sanjay Bhatia, an aide of Chief Minister and Kiran Chopra, wife of sitting BJP MP Ashwani Chopra, Chandra Prakash Kathuriya, advocate Ved Pal are among the probable candidates.

Union Minister Maneka Sanjay Gandhi had also expressed interest to contest from here.

The BJP is unlikely to field Ashwani Chopra from here again as he had embarrassed the party high command many times by airing his differences publicly.

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