Farmers Movement Archive

Haryana byelection: Gobind Kanda is BJP’s nominee for Ellenabad contest

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday announced the candidature of Gobind Kanda for the October 30 Ellenabad byelections in Haryana. Kanda, who is the elder brother of Gopal Kanda, the lone MLA of the Haryana Lokhit Party, joined the BJP in Sirsa last week. His father, the late Murlidhar Kanda, was an advocate and an RSS worker. Sirsa MLA Gopal Kanda has been supporting the BJP in the 90-member Haryana Vidhan Sabha. The 54-year-old Kanda filed his nomination papers on Thursday in the presence of party’s state chief OP Dhankar, bypoll in-charge Subash Barala, state sports minister Sandeep Singh, state power minister Ranjit Singh Chautala, JJP’s state chief Nishan Singh and others.Gobind faced protest from farmers while filing his nomination and it might be a tough task for him and other BJP-JJP leaders to campaign in Haryana villages as farmers are boycotting their entry.The nomination filing exercise ends on October 8. The nominations will be scrutinised on October 11 and the last date of withdrawing it is October 16.Gobind Kanda, 54, had unsuccessfully contested the assembly elections in 2014 and 2019 from Rania segment in Sirsa district, and will be the joint nominee of the ruling BJP and Jannayak Janta Party (JJP). Keenly contested election The Ellenabad slugfest will be keenly contested. The challenge before the ruling BJP-JJP combine is how to reach out to the electorate in view of the farm agitation and the cultivators not allowing its leaders to move freely in the state to hold public meetings or government functions. The Jat-dominated assembly seat in Sirsa district had fallen vacant after Abhay Singh Chautala, the lone MLA of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), resigned in January from the assembly in protest against the Centre’s three farm laws. The INLD has again fielded Abhay Chautala, who during the October 2019 Haryana assembly elections won the seat by 12,000 votes as he got 57,055 votes of 1,49,947 valid votes polled. His nearest rival in the fray BJP’s Pawan Beniwal polled 45,133 votes and Congress’ Bharat Singh Beniwal had got 35,383 votes. The BJP had to look for a new candidate as its nominee in the October 2019 assembly elections, Pawan Beniwal, has deserted the party to support the ongoing farmers’ agitation and joined the Congress recently. The Haryana Congress is yet to announce its candidate for the byelection. (With inputs from Rohtak)

Hindustan Times

08-10-2021

Chandigarh