Taking a 10-minute chai break at Dattaur village, Satish Nandal, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate contesting against Congress’ Bhupinder Singh Hooda exuded confidence of emerging victorious.
“Just as people here have only heard of U.S. President Donald Trump, they only hear of Bhupinder Hooda but they won’t see him. Like the Lok Sabha elections, the voters have decided to defeat him this time too,” Mr. Nandal told The Hindu when asked about his chances against the former two-time Chief Minister.
In the Garhi Sampla-Kiloi Assembly seat that Mr. Hooda now represents as a lawmaker, it is a battle of two narratives: development of the area during the Hooda government versus strong and decisive leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In this Jat-dominated Assembly constituency that is part of the Rohtak Parliamentary seat, Mr. Hooda’s home turf, even BJP supporters agree on the development of infrastructure during the Hooda years.
Disappointment
The stance taken by a section of the Jat community reflects their disappointment with BJP’s choice of a Punjabi leader, Manohar Lal Khattar, over a Jat to head the government.
Post the February 2016 violence over the Jat reservation agitation, the BJP also took care to project itself as a party that would protect the interests of the non-Jats, who form the majority of the State’s electorate.
But Prime Minister Modi’s popularity seems to override concerns by a section of the Jats of having to play a secondary role in the State’s politics.
“We have not got much from the Khattar government as we did during Hooda’s. But the poor people like Modi as he has given them free gas cylinders and power connection,” said 61-year-old Mange Ram who does farming on a three-acre plot.
“Removal of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) have strengthened Mr. Modi’s leadership,” he added. His statement underscored why BJP’s star campaigners like Home Minister Amit Shah and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath have focussed on J&K and having a National Register of Citizens (NRC) for Haryana.
Supporters of Mr. Hooda, who was the Congress’ star campaigner and was busy campaigning in other constituencies, didn’t challenge the BJP either on Article 370 or J&K.
Instead, the Congress campaign centred around development or the lack of it, unemployment, quantitative ceiling imposed on different crops for government purchase, farmers ‘forced’ to buy crop insurance and now a steep hike in challans for traffic violations.
At Ismail village, part of the Assembly constituency, there were complaints about farmers not getting the Kissan Samman Nidhi or the yearly assistance of ₹6,000.
“I have been to Rohtak and met officials a couple of times as my name is on the list. They assure me every time but I have not got my money,” said Badam Singh, a farmer of the village. “Now that elections are here, the government has started thinking about our constituency. All this time we got step motherly treatment,” alleged Jagbeer, who retired from the Army’s armoured corps in 2001 and is now helping out with Mr. Hooda’s campaign in Sampla.
