Bishnoi eyes CM seat from LS plank

“Even a child knows that if Haryana were to go to polls today, Bishnoi is set to be the chief minister,” Kuldeep says at a public meeting in Hisar’s Azad Nagar. But his detractors say staking claim to the CM’s post is too ambitious and premature; the HJC currently has just one MLA (Kuldeep’s wife Renuka Bishnoi) in the 90-member Haryana assembly.

“Vote Modi for the development of the country, vote Bishnoi for the state’s progress,” he tells his audience, trying to cash in on the BJP’s campaign pitch.

Welcoming some INLD workers into his party, Bishnoi takes a swipe at the Chautalas: “This party only hands over the flag to its workers. It keeps the stick with itself, so that it can beat them with it later… Their family is in jail on corruption charges. How can any sensible person vote for them?”

Steering clear of the Jat versus non-Jat argument, a plank he’s often been accused of basing his campaign on, Bishnoi chooses to target his rivals on the “stepmotherly” treatment meted out to his constituency. “All educational institutes and factories went to Sirsa during Chautala’s rule. The same has happened in Hooda’s government where everything has gone to Rohtak. Why are they asking for votes in Hisar now?”

More than anything else, it is his father’s legacy that Bishnoi appears to be banking on majorly. “If anybody has the right to ask for votes, it has to be Bhajan Lal’s son,” he says. Having won last time with a wafer-thin margin and faced with a resurgent INLD this time, Bishnoi knows it isn’t going to be easy for him.