Faridabad Lok Sabha Constituency, which has Faridabad town, the leading industrial township of Haryana is all set to witness a close contest this time between senior BJP leader and Union Minister Krishan Pal Gurjar and Congress candidate Mahender Pratap Singh. Both Pratap and Gurjar are traditional opponents in politics, and belong to the Gurjar community, a key deciding factor in the Faridabad parliamentary seat.

BJP candidate Gurjar is seeking a mandate for a hat trick from this Constituency. With anti-incumbency a major issue for many, it is the non-Gurjar voters, like Jats, Muslims, SC, BC and Punjabi communities, whose support is seen as a deciding factor. This is mainly due to the fact that both candidates (BJP and Congress) belong to the Gurjar community and this vote bank stands to be divided. While the battle has emerged as a direct contest between the two, victory will be no cakewalk.

Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) has nominated Nalin Hooda as its candidate. Hooda is the JJP youth president of the Faridabad district unit. Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) has fielded Sunil Tewatia – a member of the former royal family of Ballabgarh – in Faridabad. Two women have filed nominations in the Faridabad Parliamentary Seat, which has 24 candidates in total.

In Faridabad Lok Sabha constituency, the number of voters is 24,14,168, of which 13,10,206 are male, 11,03,844 female, and 118 transgenders. As far as caste equation is concerned, the constituency has around 3 lakh Jat voters followed by over 2.5 lakh Gujjars, over 1.5 Brahmins and over 2 lakh Scheduled caste voters. The constituency also has more than one lakh Muslim voters. The slum and migrant voters, also form a sizable percentage in the Faridabad seat.

Faridabad Lok Sabha seat consists of nine Assembly seats-Prithla, Faridabad NIT, Badkhal, Ballabhgarh, Faridabad and Tigaon assembly constituencies of Faridabad district – while three assembly constituencies Hathin, Hodal and Palwal from Palwal district.

Hathin assembly segment of Faridabad parliamentary seat has a majority of Muslim votes. Similarly, Palwal, Prithla and Faridabad, Ballabgarh assembly seat under Faridabad constituency are dominated by Jat community. Similarly, Tigaon, Badkhal, Faridabad-NIT and Palwal have a significant influence on the Gurjar community. Faridabad constituency had come into existence in 1977 and has mostly been with the Congress party, which managed to secure the seat six times out of the 12 elections held here so far. The BJP has won five times in this Constituency.  

Congress Candidate Mahendra Pratap Singh is considered close to former Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Mahendra Pratap, one of the senior most leaders in Haryana’s politics, had defeated Gurjar around 20 years back in 2005 on Mewla Maharajpur assembly seat. Prior to that, Gurjar had defeated Mahendra Pratap in the 1996 assembly elections from the same seat.

Mahendra Pratap, 79, has contested different elections in the state nine times. An old Congressman, Mahendra Pratap has also served as minister from 1991-1996 in the then Bhajan Lal-led Congress Government and from 2009-2014 in the then Bhupinder Singh Hooda-led Congress regime in the State. As a minister for two tenures, Mahendra Pratap had held various important portfolios in the State cabinet, including revenue, industries and labour, local bodies, renewable energy, food supplies, technical education and power. Holding a graduation degree, Mahendra Pratap had also served as the leader of Congress legislative party from 1987 to 1991. He had started his political journey in 1966 as a village sarpanch. He was elected as member of state assembly five times including in 1982, 1987, 1991, 2005 and 2009.

In one of his public campaigns, Mahendra Pratap had launched an aggressive attack on Gurjar stating that this time, the public would vote for those who work on ground and not those who have been winning seats just in the name of Modi.

The BJP nominee from Faridabad seat, 67-year-old Krishan Pal Gurjar is a MP from Faridabad since 2014 and is looking for a third term because of a purported Modi wave. In the 2019 parliamentary polls, he had secured victory for the second time in a row with a massive margin of around 6.38 lakh votes, defeating Avtar Singh Bhadana of Congress. In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, he had defeated Bhadana by a margin of around 4.66 lakh votes.

A law graduate, Gurjar had started his political career in 1994 when he was elected as councillor in Faridabad Municipal Corporation (MC). In 1996 assembly polls in Haryana, he was elected MLA from Mewla Maharajpur and was made transport minister in the then Bansi Lal led HVP-BJP government. He was again elected as MLA for two more terms in 2000 and 2009 (Tigaon). Gurjar has also served as state BJP president. Gurjar has also served as minister of state for power, heavy industries, social justice and empowerment, road transport and highways ports, shipping and waterways on different terms in the Narender Modi government.

In the past, some high-profile leaders like former Chief Minister Bhajan Lal and Avtar Singh Bhadana have represented the seat. BJP’s Ram Chander Bainda was consecutively returned thrice to Parliament from this seat in the 1996, 1998 and 1999 elections. Avtar Singh Bhadana represented the seat in 1991, 2004 and 2009.

In the 2019 elections, BJPs Krishan Pal won with 913,222 votes. Congress Avtar Singh Bhadana received 268,327 votes, and the Bahujan Samaj Partys Mandhir Singh Maan received 84,006 votes.

In the 2014 elections, BJPs Krishan Pal defeated Congress Avtar Singh Bhadana by 466,873 votes. Krishan Pal received a total of 652,516 votes, garnering 57.7% of the vote share. Avtar Singh Bhadana received 185,643 votes. The Congress received only 16.5% of the votes.

Political observers opine that Mahendra Pratap’s nomination has made the contest interesting, which otherwise was almost one-sided for the last two terms, when Gurjar has been securing easy wins. Although the veteran leader has a strong experience of contesting elections and had deep connections in the constituency, he may face some infighting within his party, as several other Congress leaders had expressed deep grouse after the party had nominated him from Faridabad seat. The Faridabad seat has significant influence from Jat, Gurjar, Meo-Muslim, Punjabi, Brahmin and others. Votes of a large population of migrant labourers that have shifted here for jobs in industries and other sectors also play an important role. Major challenge for the BJP candidate Krishan Pal Gurjar would be to get support of Meo-Muslims, which also have significant presence and influence in this seat. Meo-Muslims traditionally vote for Congress.

Though the candidates of these parties had also been Gurjar in the past two elections, the victory of the BJP in 2014 and 2019 is attributed mainly to the Modi factor. Since there is no such factor, issues like corruption, development and the image of candidates, are likely to decide the outcomes.