Lessons from 2019 learnt, Congress does the balancing act in Haryana list

Five years after the BJP swept Haryana in the Lok Sabha elections, winning all 10 constituencies in the state, based on support from all major communities in the state, except Muslims, the Congress maintained the balance between all the influential castes in the state in its list of candidates released on Thursday.

The Congress is contesting nine of the Haryana constituencies while one, Kurukshetra, is with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The party, yet to announce its candidate from Gurugram, has given two tickets each to Jats, Dalits, and Other Backward Classes (OBCs). One ticket each has been given to the Punjabi and Brahmin communities.

The candidates from the Scheduled Castes (SCs) are Kumari Selja (Sirsa) and Varun Chaudhary (Ambala). Deepender Hooda (Rohtak) and Jai Prakash (Hisar) are the Jats on the list while the two OBC candidates are Rao Dan Singh (Bhiwani-Mahendragarh) and Mahendra Pratap (Faridabad). Satpal Brahmachari (Sonipat) is the Bramhin nominee and Divyanshu Buddhiraja (Karnal) is the candidate from the Punjabi community.

Against the BJP’s Faridabad candidate Krishan Pal Gurjar, who is from the Gurjar community, the Congress has fielded Mahendra Pratap who is also a Gurjar. Rao Dan Singh who comes from the Ahir community is the party’s choice to take on the BJP’s Jat candidate Dharambir in Bhiwani.

In Sirsa and Ambala, which are SC-reserved seats, the BJP has fielded Ashok Tanwar and Banto Kataria.

Both Rohtak and Hisar are Jat-dominated constituencies but have significant Punjabi and Brahmin communities. In Rohtak, the BJP’s Arvind Sharma, a Brahmin, will take on Deepender Hooda. Hisar will see a Jat versus Jat contest between BJP’s Ranjit Singh and Jai Prakash. In Sonipat, where the BJP has fielded Brahmin