New Delhi:
The political fortunes of Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Vinesh Phogat of the Congress, besides JJP’s Dushyant Chautala and over 1,000 other candidates will be decided today, as the people of Haryana vote for 90 seats.

1. The ruling BJP is eyeing a hat-trick while the Congress is hoping to make a comeback in Haryana after a decade. The other key contestants are Congress, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) and Azad Samaj Party (ASP).

2. The BJP’s campaign was spearheaded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who addressed four rallies, where he attacked the Congress on several issues and said they kept every matter important for the country entangled, including the Ram temple issue.

3. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also addressed many public meetings where he said a “Congress storm” is on its way in Haryana and his party would form the government, which will be one for the poor and farmers, and a “mohabbat ki dukan” will be opened in every corner of the state.

4. The Congress left the Bhiwani assembly seat for its INDIA bloc partner Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M), while the BJP is not contesting the Sirsa seat, from where Haryana Lokhit Party chief Gopal Kanda is seeking re-election.

5. Most seats are likely to see a direct fight between the BJP and the Congress. Prominent among them are Chief Minister Saini (Ladwa), Leader of Opposition Hooda (Garhi Sampla-Kiloi), INLD’s Abhay Singh Chautala (Ellenabad), JJP’s Dushyant Chautala (Uchana Kalan), BJP’s Anil Vij (Ambala Cantt), Capt Abhimanyu (Narnaund) and OP Dhankar (Badli), AAP’s Anurag Dhanda (Kalayat) and Congress’s Phogat (Julana).

6. The BJP has fielded former Chief Minister Bhajan Lal’s grandson Bhavya Bishnoi from Adampur segment in Hisar while its nominee from Ateli in Mahendragarh is Arti Rao, whose father Rao Inderjit Singh is a Union Minister. Among the independent candidates include Savitri Jindal (Hisar), Ranjit Chautala (Rania) and Chitra Sarwara (Ambala Cantt).

7. Taking on Dushyant Chautala from Uchana is the Congress’s Brijendra Singh, the son of former Union minister Birender Singh. A few rebels from both Congress and the BJP are also contesting. From Tosham seat, former BJP MP Shruti Choudhry and Anirudh Chaudhary, both cousins, are contesting. From Dabwali, Devi Lal’s grandson Aditya Devi Lal, an INLD candidate, is taking on JJP’s Digvijay Singh Chautala, the great grandson of the former Deputy Prime Minister.

8. In the last assembly election in 2019, the BJP won 40 seats, the Congress 31 and the JJP 10. The BJP then formed the government with the support of the JJP while most independents had also extended support to it then. However, the JJP’s post-poll tie-up with the BJP ended after the BJP replaced Manohar Lal Khattar with Nayab Singh Saini as Chief Minister in March.

9. Director General of Police Shatrujeet Kapur said the Haryana Police are fully prepared to ensure free, fair and peaceful conduct of elections. Over 30,000 police personnel and 225 paramilitary companies have been deployed. Of the total voters, 1.07 crore are men, 95 lakh are women, and 467 are transgenders. Votes will be counted on October 8.

10. There are 8,821 voters aged over 100, including 3,283 men and 5,538 women. The total number of service voters is 1.09 lakh. Notably, the voter turnout recorded in 2019 assembly polls was around 68 per cent.

With inputs from PTI

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The Injured being treated at a hospital after a blast in the boiler of a spare parts manufacturing facility, in Rewari district, on March 17, 2024.
| Photo Credit: PTI

Three more workers injured in a boiler blast at a spare parts manufacturing facility in Haryana’s Rewari last week died on March 22, taking the death toll in the incident to 10, police said.

“Two workers died during treatment at PGIMS Hospital, Rohtak while one worker died in Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital. The death toll in the incident has now risen to 10,” Dharuhera police station SHO Jagdish Chand said.

The blast took place at the manufacturing facility in the Dharuhera industrial area on March 16, leaving 40 workers injured, according to the police.

Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini had on Wednesday met the injured at PGIMS Hospital.

Mr. Saini had said he had already ordered a magisterial probe into the incident and the government would take appropriate action based on its findings.

The police on Sunday had registered a case in connection with the boiler blast. The contractor and others have been booked in the case.

The FIR was registered on the basis of a complaint filed by Raj Kumar, a labourer from Uttar Pradesh’s Gonda district.

New Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Saini cleared a floor test aimed at proving that BJP had majority status in the assembly even after breaking ties with Dushyant Chautala’s JJP.

“I come from a humble family background, no one is in politics in my family. I am just a party worker of the BJP and today I have been given such a big opportunity. I must say that this can be possible only in a party like the BJP,” Mr Saini said in the State Assembly.

“I have learnt everything from scratch from former Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar. I have learnt even the minutest things from him and how to maintain them,” he added.

Haryana witnessed a swift change of government over the past 48 hours, with senior BJP leader Manohar Lal Khattar and the entire cabinet, which included three from the JJP, quitting Tuesday.

The proximate cause of the break-up of Mr Khattar’s government was the failure of the BJP-JJP alliance, which was formed after the 2019 Assembly election, in which the former emerged as the single-largest party but fell six seats short of an outright majority.

Mr Saini was chosen as the new chief minister after the surprise resignation.

Speaking in the assembly today, Mr Saini said, “Manohar Lal is a “saint” and he has given a lot to Haryana, strengthened it and it was his thinking that weaker sections and poor should get benefits at their doorsteps.”

Saini said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao programme in 2015 and added the BJP government in the state took it as a pledge to ensure success of the programme.