Youth Congress leader makes former CM Khattar sweat in Karnal battle, with a little help from Hooda

In January 2018, a youth Congress leader named Divyanshu Budhiraja along with few other students raised slogans against the then Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar when he was making his way to a college principal’s office in Panchkula after attending an event there. They were all clad in black, and were raising slogans on rising unemployment.

In the wake of this confrontation with Khattar, Budhiraja and Hardik Nain, one of his associates, were arrested.

Six years later, Budhiraja, now 30, will take on Khattar on the Congress ticket in the Karnal Lok Sabha seat, which votes with the rest of Haryana in the sixth phase on May 25.

For Budhiraja who has been associated with the National Students Union of India (NSUI), the Congress’s youth wing, this will mark his first foray into electoral politics.

In his campaign, Budhiraja is attacking Khattar, targeting him for abruptly resigning from the CM’s post two months ago to make way for Nayab Singh Saini. “The BJP removed him from the post of chief minister. The public of Karnal will retire him from politics with respect,” Budhiraja tells the people at his rallies.

He is also highlighting how he and the Congress do not have resources like the BJP, but are still putting up a “spirited campaign”.

At a poll meeting held in Namunda village of Panipat district recently, he underlined the Congress’s poll promises: a monthly old-age pension of Rs 6,000; free residential plots for the poor; 300 units free electricity; an LPG gas cylinder at the rate of Rs 500 and as many as two lakh government jobs in Haryana and 30 lakh government jobs at the national level.

As Budhiraja faces a heavyweight in the election, senior Congress leader and ex-CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who was instrumental