Battle for Kurkshetra heats up as INLD’s Abhay Chautala throws hat in the ring

Indian National Lok Dal Saturday announced that party secretary general Abhay Chautala, 61, will contest the Lok Sabha polls from Kurukshetra, the parliamentary constituency from where his son had tried his luck in 2019 general elections but ended up a distant fifth in result chart. Abhay is at present an MLA from Ellenabad and is the party’s only representative in the 90-member Haryana Vidhan Sabha.

INLD media coordinator Rakesh Sihag told The Indian Express that the party supremo and former chief minister Om Prakash Chautala approved Abhay’s candidature after a five-member panel, headed by party vice-president Prakash Bharti, made a recommendation after talking to the voters of the constituency.

The Aam Aadmi Party has already fielded its state unit chief Sushil Gupta from Kurukshetra in the arrangement that it finalised with the Congress for the Lok Sabha elections. The newly installed Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini is the MP from Kurukshetra — a district that is being nurtured and developed by the BJP-led state dispensation as a spiritual hub. The Lok Sabha constituency covers entire Kurukshetra and Kaithal districts and parts of Yamunanagar district of Haryana. Both Kurukshetra and Kaithal share border with Punjab, a state where the AAP is in power.

Kurukshetra Lok Sabha constituency comprises nine Assembly segments. Of these, BJP had won four including Thanesar (Subhash Sudha), Pehowa (Sandeep Singh), Kalayat (Kamlesh Dhanda) and Kaithal (Leela Ram) in 2019 Assembly polls. BJP’s ally JJP had won two seats — Shahbad (Ram Karan) and Guhla (Ishwar Singh). Pundri is represented by Randhir Singh Gollen who contested as Independent and subsequently supported BJP, while Congress had won the remaining two seats –