Gurugram: Congress Rajya Sabha MP Deepender Singh Hooda is leading against his nearest rival Arvind Sharma of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by a margin of 32,252 votes from the Rohtak Parliamentary constituency, according to the early trends released by the Election Commission of India.
Son of former Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Deepender first claimed the Rohtak seat in a bypoll in October 2005 after his father, who won this seat in 2004, was named the CM after the assembly elections in 2005.
Holding a B.Tech degree from The Technological Institute of Textiles and Sciences, Bhiwani and an MBA from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, Bloomington, Deepender was in a corporate job in the US following which he came to India and decided to take a plunge into politics.
His political journey saw him secure the Rohtak seat in the 2009 and 2014 parliamentary elections. However, in 2019, he narrowly lost to BJP’s Arvind Sharma by approximately 7,000 votes. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2020, with his term set to conclude in 2026.
Before him, his father won the Rohtak parliamentary seat in 1991, 1996, 1998, and 2004. However, in 1999, Indian National Lok Dal’s (INLD) Inder Singh defeated Bhupinder Singh Hooda to win the seat.
The Hooda family has a long-standing history in politics, with Deepender being the fourth generation to engage actively.
While Bhupinder Hooda remained CM for 10 years and is currently the Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly, Deepender’s grandfather, Chaudhary Ranbir Singh, and great-grandfather, Chaudhary Matu Ram, were also into active politics.
Before Bhupinder Hooda’s victory in the Rohtak Lok Sabha constituency in 1991, the seat was largely under the influence of the INLD, led by former deputy prime minister Chaudhary Devi Lal. The party, along with its previous avatars, secured wins in the 1971, 1977, and 1980 elections, with Chaudhary Devi Lal himself clinching the seat in 1989.
The Congress party marked its first triumph in Rohtak in 1984 with Hardwari Lal’s election as MP.
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