Gurugram: Rajbir Singh Lala, younger brother of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Dharambir Singh, and Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) MLA from Shahbad Ram Karan Kala are among the 2,556 applicants for Congress tickets for the upcoming Haryana assembly elections.
Also on the list are at least two retired district court judges, as well as former Indian Administrative Service and Police Service officers.
Haryana has 90 assembly seats. The Election Commission of India (ECI) announced Friday that the state will vote in a single phase on 1 October, and counting of votes will take place on 4 October.
In the 52-page list of Congress applicants, accessed by ThePrint, nearly a dozen are retired civil servants, police officers and judges.
Rajbir Singh Lala wishes to stake his claim to Haryana’s Tosham assembly seat, where his brother started his political career by defeating then chief minister Bansi Lal in 1987.
Three-time MP from Bhiwani-Mahendragarh, Dharambir had left the Congress to join the BJP ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Before this, in 1987, he was elected the MLA of Tosham as a candidate of Devi Lal’s Lok Dal, defeating Bansi Lal. He won this seat again in 2000 by defeating Bansi Lal’s son, Surender Singh, who went on to join the Congress ahead of the 2005 assembly polls.
Surender’s wife, Kiran Choudhry, who shifted to Haryana politics from Delhi after his death in a helicopter crash, has been representing Tosham in the state assembly since 2005. Choudhry quit the Congress to join the BJP in June this year.
“Tosham assembly seat is not new to me. I had contested this seat as an independent candidate in the 2014 assembly elections and polled 38,427 votes, with a 25.4 percent vote share,” Lala told The Print Thursday.
In 2014, Lala had polled just 250 votes lesser than Indian National Lok Dal’s Kamla Rani, the runner-up in the election, who had bagged 38,477 votes. Choudhry had won the seat with 58,218 votes, while the BJP candidate, Gunpal, had received just 1,822 votes and lost his security deposit.
Lala said that though he has supported his brother in every election the latter had fought as a BJP candidate since 2014, he never subscribed to the BJP’s ideology.
“I entered politics as a student at Government College in Bhiwani in 1979, and then again, while I was pursuing my Bachelor’s degree in education from KM College of Education, Bhiwani, in 1980-81,” he recalled.
He further said: “As a member of the Indian Youth Congress, I attended the Bangalore convention of the Congress on 31 December, 1981, when Rajiv Gandhi had first joined active politics. Chaudhary Birender Singh used to be our leader. In 1982, I actively worked for Congress candidate Chander Mohan Singh in the prestigious Garhwal byelection against Democratic Socialist Party chairman HN Bahuguna.”
Lala added that in 1983, he had joined the Haryana education department as a science teacher, but Bansi Lal had suspended him soon after being elected chief minister for the second time in 1986. “My suspension was resolved only in 1993. I eventually resigned in 1995 before he came to power again in 1996,” he said.
“Economics has always interested me. I believe that if a Rs 500 currency note passes through ten hands, ten families will benefit. But if the same note is locked in a rich elite person’s safe, it won’t serve anyone’s purpose,” Lala remarked.
Ram Karan Kala, the JJP MLA from Shahbad in Kurukshetra district, who has applied for a Congress ticket from his constituency, told The Print that he would formally join the Congress after 5 September. Kala was one of the seven JJP MLAs who were missing in action during the Lok Sabha poll campaign.
“My sons Sukram Pal and Kanwar Pal had joined the Congress ahead of the general elections,” Kala added. The list of applicants shows that Kanwar Pal is one of 56 candidates vying for a Congress ticket from Shahbad.
In May this year, JJP chief Dushyant Chautala had written to Haryana assembly Speaker Gian Chand Gupta, demanding the disqualification of two of his MLAs, Ramniwas Surjakhera (Narwana) and Jogi Ram (Barwala), who had openly supported BJP candidates in the Lok Sabha polls.
The sons of Kala and another JJP MLA, Ishwar Singh (Guhla), have already joined the Congress, even though they themselves haven’t officially joined a different party yet. Ishwar’s son, Randhir Singh, is among the 45 candidates to have applied for a Congress ticket from Guhla in Kaithal district.
While 89 of the 90 assembly seats have multiple applicants, only Bhupinder Singh Hooda, the Leader of Opposition in the state assembly, has applied from Garhi Sampla-Kiloi in Rohtak district, his bastion.
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Former judges, bureaucrats & police officers
Ram Niwas Bharti, who retired as a district and sessions judge in Sirsa in 2020, has applied for a Congress ticket from Pataudi assembly seat. Another judge from Rohtak who retired in 2023, Rakesh Kumar Yadav, is among the 40 aspirants to have applied from the Narnaul seat.
Vikas Yadav, a retired IAS officer from Haryana, has applied for Narnaul. Other former civil servants who have applied for Congress tickets include Vinay Singh Yadav from Nangal Chaudhary, Chander Prakash from Nalwa, Wazir Singh Chand from Jind, and R.S. Verma from Nalwa. Subhash Yadav, a former IPS officer, has applied from Ateli.
Ram Niwas Bharti told ThePrint that “educated people” with the right intentions should join politics for the success of democracy.
“I want to contest elections because I believe that educated and just people should govern our country. Due to a large number of uneducated people with questionable character entering politics, people are fast losing trust in politicians. This can be very dangerous for democracy,” he said. “I believe that educated people, who have worked honestly in various fields, should come forward and contest elections.”
Rakesh Kumar Yadav said he hailed from Meerpur village in Narnaul, and was actively involved in politics before he joined judicial services as a district and sessions judge in 2008. “I have also served as president and secretary of the district bar association at Narnaul before 2008,” he added.
Asked about his reasons for choosing Congress, Yadav said he has always been a socialist by nature. “Bhupinder Singh Hooda is the only leader in Haryana, who believes in the welfare of all, irrespective of their caste, creed, or community.”
Vikas Yadav, who retired from the IAS last year, told The Print that during his tenure as a civil servant, he discovered the bottlenecks that often creep during the implementation of policies or execution of developmental works.
“I want to combine my administrative experience with politics for the benefit of society,” he added.
Asked why he chose to join the Congress, Yadav said, “I have been a student of history. I know the history of the Congress as well as other political parties. I have always admired Nehru.”
Former IPS officer Subhash Yadav said he wants to join politics and contest elections to help ensure good governance, eradication of corruption and clean politics.
“I am against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s hoax of cultural nationalism, the ideology of ‘Manuwad’, and the denial of the right to equality to all citizens by discriminating against them based on their caste, creed, and religion,” he told ThePrint.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)