The high-voltage campaign for a cut throat finish in Haryana for the October 5 Assembly polls came to an end on Thursday evening. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) suffered a major blow as its senior leader and former Member of Parliament Ashok Tanwar, who was the party’s candidate from Sirsa for the Lok Sabha elections a few months ago, re-joined Congress at a rally of Rahul Gandhi in Mahendragarh district in Haryana on Thursday.

Interestingly, shortly before joining the grand old party, the former Sirsa MP, who represented it as a Congress member, was campaigning for the BJP candidate in Safidon Assembly constituency. As Rahul Gandhi finished his speech, an announcement was made from the stage asking the audience to wait for a few minutes. To their surprise Tanwar walked on to the stage and greeted Rahul.

Tanwar, a former Haryana Congress president, shook hands with Rahul and greeted senior party leader and former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

Tanwar, who was considered close to Rahul and had left the Congress in 2019 following differences with senior party leader former Hooda and in between he had his stint with  Trinamool Congress (TMC) as well as Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Leading the campaign for BJP Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the Congress stands for the “guarantee of corruption, casteism, communalism and nepotism”. The PM exhorted people to vote for the BJP, saying it is important that they elect a government which strengthens India at a time when the entire world is looking at the country with hope and expectations.

In his last speech for the campaign in Haryana, Rahul said his party will not let the “hatred” being spread by the BJP on the basis of religion, language, and caste win and appealed to the people of Haryana to oust the

ruling party in the Assembly polls. More than two crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in Haryana for 90 assembly seats. The key parties in fray are BJP, Congress, AAP,  Indian National Lok Da-Bahujan Samaj Party (INLD-BSP) and Jannayak Janta Party-Azad Samaj Party.

While BJP focused its election campaign on the works and performance of the “double-engine” government, while it targeted the Congress on reservation, corruption, appeasement and dynastic politics, Congress wooed by announcing seven guarantees, including the promises of a legal guarantee for MSP, a caste survey, and Rs 2,000 per month to women, if voted to power.

On the last day of campaigning, Congress’s Rahul Gandhi and Bhupinder Singh Hooda, BJP’s Yogi Adityanath and Nayab Singh Saini, JJP’s Dushyant Chautala and INLD’s Abhay Singh Chautala were among the prominent leaders who canvassed for their respective parties. AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal also campaigned in Haryana for his party.