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Hooda likely to contest from 2 seats; Congress to play Jat CM card
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 13
Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is likely to contest from two segments in the upcoming Assembly polls.

Top Congress sources today told The Tribune that Hooda’s supporters were mounting pressure on him to fight from two seats. The Chief Minister is believed to have “yielded to the request.” The idea is to expand the party’s electoral appeal beyond the Rohtak parliamentary segment where Hooda already wields influence.

Hooda’s candidature from Garhi Sampla Kiloi (Rohtak segment), the constituency he currently represents in the Assembly, has already been approved by the Congress’ Central Election Committee headed by party president Sonia Gandhi. The other Assembly seat from where Hooda is likely to contest is Gohana in Sonepat Lok Sabha constituency.

“By contesting from Gohana, Hooda can impact seats in Sonepat, Panipat and Karnal that all fall along the Grand Trunk Road where visible development has taken place in the past 10 years of the Congress rule in Haryana,” party sources said. The party will take a final call on Hooda’s second seat after Sonia returns from her trip abroad.

It is learnt that the Congress had zeroed down on four seats from where Hooda could contest. Apart from Gohana, the other options were Indri, Assandh and Panipat Rural (all in Karnal LS segment).

“The idea is to impact the Assembly segments along the GT Road and project Hooda as the Jat face of the party,” sources said. “They (Jat voters) are disenchanted in the absence of Jat faces in other political camps,” said sources.

“INLD chief Om Prakash Chautala is in jail and the BJP hasn’t projected our former leader Choudhry Birender Singh as their Jat face in Haryana.

There are not many options before Jat voters," Congress sources said.

The Congress, meanwhile, has also been sending a positive message to non-Jats. The party recently named state minister Capt Ajay Yadav as head of the party’s campaign committee. Party leaders also believe that the disenchanted INLD voters may choose the Congress over others owing to the absence of Jat leaders in other camps. The Congress further hopes to gain from the division of non- Jat votes in a multi-cornered fight between HJC’s Kuldeep Bishnoi, Mayawati’s BSP and former Congress leaders Vinod Sharma and Gopal Kanda who have floated new outfits.

The strategy of fighting from two seats was successfully tried in the recent Lok Sabha polls by BJP's Narendra Modi who fought from Vadodara segment in Gujarat and from UP’s Varanasi to impact the seats in UP and bordering Bihar.

The two-seat plan

Hooda’s candidature from Garhi Sampla Kiloi (Rohtak), the constituency he currently represents in the Assembly, has been approved by the party. He is also likely to contest from Gohana in Sonepat

The idea is to impact the Assembly segments (Karnal, Panipat, Sonepat) along the GT Road where visible development has taken place in the last 10 years and project Hooda as the Jat face of the party