Gurugram: With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) trying to beat anti-incumbency in its bid secure a third consecutive time in Haryana, chaos erupted within the party following the release of its first list of candidates for the assembly polls scheduled for 5 October.
Ranjit Singh—state minister for power, jails and new and renewable energy—announced his resignation from the Nayab Saini cabinet Thursday. He also declared his decision to contest the election as an Independent from his traditional Rania seat in Sirsa.
Singh had called a meeting with his supporters Thursday after the BJP did not include him in the first list of 67 candidates released the previous day. After the meeting, he told the media that he had submitted his resignation and would contest as an Independent. The BJP denied him a ticket from Rania, and fielded veteran party worker Shishpal Kamboj instead.
Singh unsuccessfully contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Hisar on a BJP ticket.
The Print reached Ranjit Singh for comment but his mobile phone was switched off. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
Besides Ranjit Singh, Savitri Jindal, mother of noted industrialist and BJP MP from Kurukshetra Naveen Jindal, announced Thursday that she would contest as an Independent from Hisar against Haryana cabinet minister Dr Kamal Gupta.
She addressed a large number of supporters at her Hisar residence Thursday after learning that the BJP did not include her name in the list. Many carried her late husband O.P. Jindal’s picture in their hands, and raised slogans, requesting her to contest as an Independent.
“I am not a primary member of the BJP. I came here from Delhi to announce that I would not be contesting the election, but seeing your love and trust, I have decided to contest,” Savitri told her supporters.
Her husband O.P. Jindal, an industrialist and a minister in the then chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s cabinet, had died in a chopper crash along with another minister Surender Singh on 31 March 2005. Savitri was elected an MLA in a bye-election held later that year. She won the Hisar seat again in 2009, and was a minister in the Hooda government. In 2014, she lost to Dr Kamal Gupta, following which she did not contest the election in 2019.
Before Savitri, O.P. Jindal had been elected from this seat in 1991, 2000 and 2005.
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Chaos, resignations after 1st list
Within minutes of the first list of 67 candidates being released Wednesday evening, resignation from BJP leaders and functionaries began surfacing on social media one after another.
Among those who announced their decision to part ways with the party are a former minister and president of BJP’s OBC Morcha; a sitting MLA; a former MLA; and president of BJP’s Kisan Morcha, a number of people who contested the 2019 assembly elections in the state as BJP candidates, and party functionaries from various districts.
At 8:14 pm Wednesday, the BJP shared its first list of 67 candidates for the assembly elections on the party’s official WhatsApp group for journalists.
Before BJP Haryana could post the list on its official X handle (it was posted at 8:39 pm)—a neatly typed resignation letter with “Alvida Bhajapa (Goodbye BJP)” as the caption was posted on Facebook by Sukhwinder Sheoran, former BJP MLA from Badhra in Bhiwani, at 8:21 pm Wednesday. He was also the state president of the BJP Kisan Morcha, Haryana.
“I resign from the post of state president of the BJP Kisan Morcha, Haryana, and primary membership of the party. Kindly accept my resignation with immediate effect,” it read.
The case of BJP’s Lakshman Napa, MLA from Ratia, is quite interesting. Napa resigned from the party after he was denied a ticket, and the party fielded MP Sunita Duggal instead.
In a Facebook post in the afternoon at 2:24 pm Wednesday—before the BJP had shared its first list of candidates—Napa posted a picture of him sitting with many other villagers with the caption: “Had a meeting with Sarpanchs of the area at my residence in Jallopur village and planned a strategy for bringing BJP government yet again under CM Nayab Saini.”
By Wednesday evening, his letter of resignation from the BJP addressed to state president Mohan Lal Badoli with copies to Chief Minister Nayab Saini and the party’s organising secretary had landed in media WhatsApp groups. Speaking to ThePrint over the phone Thursday, Napa said he was on his way to former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s residence in Delhi where he is slated to join the Congress in the evening.
Asked whether Congress has assured him a ticket, Napa said it “doesn’t matter now”, adding that his aim now “is to defeat BJP at the Ratia Assembly seat”.
There were signs of rebellion in Rania, Meham, Badhra, Thanesar, Uklana, Safidon, Prithla, Ratia, Sonipat, and Rewari.
Thursday morning, Karan Dev Kamboj, state president of the BJP OBC Morcha, Haryana, former MLA from Indri Assembly seat of Karnal, and former minister in Manohar Lal Khattar’s government from 2014 to 2019, posted his resignation letter on Facebook.
In his letter, Kamboj wrote that the version of the BJP which once followed the principles of Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya and Dr Syama Prasad Mukherjee no longer exists. Now, the party has been handed over to those who have always opposed it, he wrote.
“My family has dedicated themselves to the service of the BJP for the past 30 years, and for the last five years, I have served as the president of the Morcha, working tirelessly across the entire state and for 150 social programmes in Haryana,” he wrote.
“However, the party is now heading in a direction that does not align with these values. It is now dominated by individuals who have neither contributed to nor ever connected with the ideology of the party. Such individuals, who were not even part of the BJP in the past, have been given tickets, and those who have been dedicated to the party from their youth have been pushed aside,” the resignation letter read.
Kamboj added that now, differences between the BJP and Congress are fading away.
He told ThePrint Thursday that the decision of whether to contest elections or not will be made by his supporters and colleagues, and he will take his next step based on their advice. In its list announced Wednesday, the BJP fielded sitting MLA and former Rajya Sabha member Ram Kumar Kashyap from the Indiri Assembly seat.
Who else has revolted
Shamsher Singh Kharkhara, BJP candidate from Meham in Rohtak in the 2019 Haryana Assembly elections; Sanjeev Valecha, Sonipat district vice president; and Vikas (Bhalla chairman), district president of BJP Kisan Morcha, Charkhi Dadri, are others who bid farewell to the party.
Similarly, Shamsher Gill and former candidate Seema Gaibipur left the party after Anoop Dhanak, a former Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) MLA, was given a ticket from the reserved Uklana seat in Hisar.
Tarun Jain, BJP district vice president in Hisar, who had already revolted after Kamal Gupta was given a ticket, also seems likely to leave the party. He called a meeting of his supporters at his residence Thursday morning.
Meanwhile, Sanjay Thekedar, the state co-convener of BJP’s Purvanchal cell from Sonipat, has also left the party.
Additionally, Satish Khola, state coordinator for the family ID programme, has also joined the rebellion. He has called a meeting of his supporters at his residence Friday.
Former minister Kavita Jain organised a meeting with her supporters Thursday after she was denied a ticket from Sonipat, while her husband Rajiv Jain, former media advisor to Manohar Lal Khattar, is campaigning in the national capital, hoping for a change in the candidate. The BJP has fielded Nikhil Madan from Sonipat this time.
Kavita cried in front of her supporters Thursday and said she would give the BJP till 8 September to decide. After that, she would take a call on whether to stay in the BJP or not. Rajiv, meanwhile, addressed party workers through a video conference from Delhi.
Kavita’s supporters protested and raised slogans against former chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, expressing displeasure at the ticket being given to Nikhil Madan.
Contacted by The Print over the phone, Rajiv downplayed sloganeering by supporters. “Soon after the announcement of tickets, we received calls from our supporters. They were very angry. Hence, we called a meeting in a bid to pacify them.”
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)