BJP’s Sunil Sangwan, ex-jailer in whose tenure Ram Rahim got out 6 times, wins Dadri by slim margin

The BJP candidate had resigned from his post of superintendent of Bhondsi jail & joined BJP last month. His request for voluntary retirement was processed promptly ahead of polls.

Sunil Sangwan with his father Satpal | By special arrangement

Gurugram: Sunil Sangwan, a former jail superintendent and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from Dadri in Haryana’s Charkhi Dadri district, won against his nearest rival, Manisha Sangwan of the Congress, by 1,957 votes.

While the BJP candidate polled 65,568 votes, his Congress rival tallied 63,611 votes. Sanjay Chhaparia, an independent candidate, came third with 3,713 votes.

A former superintendent of jails in the Haryana Prisons Department, Sangwan resigned from his post of superintendent of Bhondsi (Gurugram) prison and joined the BJP last month, ahead of the announcement of tickets by the party for the assembly polls.

Sangwan’s request for voluntary retirement was processed at lightning speed by the Haryana Prisons department.

A mail communication by the Director General of Prisons, Haryana, to all state superintendents of jails instructed them to send no-dues certificates in favour of Sangwan the same day. The mail had gone viral on social media.

The son of former Dadri MLA and ex-minister Satpal Sangwan, Sunil Sangwan was given the ticket in place of wrestler Babita Phogat, who had contested as BJP candidate from the seat in 2019.

That year, Satpal had contested as a Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) candidate and polled 29,577 votes (23.38 percent), losing to Independent candidate Somveer Sangwan. Phogat had got the third position.

Sunil Sangwan was in government service for over 22 years until he took voluntary retirement, having joined the Haryana Prisons Department in 2002.

During his tenure, Sangwan was superintendent of several jails, including the Sunaria jail in Rohtak for five years, where Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh is serving a sentence for the rape of two women disciples and the murder of a journalist, Ram Chander Chhatrapati.

Of the 10 occasions when Ram Rahim was released on parole or furlough so far, six were when Sangwan was superintendent of the jail where the Dera chief was lodged.

(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)