It was a do-or-die battle for BJP candidate Bhavya Bishnoi in Adampur assembly segment of Hisar district where he managed to win the bypolls held on November 3, defeating Congress’ Jai Prakash by a margin of around 15,714 votes.
Bhavya won the Adampur assembly seat with as many as 67,376 votes, while the Congress’ Jai Prakash received 51,662 votes. The Indian National Lok Dal-picked candidate, who has also been a Congress rebel, Kurda Ram Nambardar garnered a mere 5,241 votes while Aam Aadmi Party's Satinder Singh received just 3413 votes — both forfeiting their security deposits.
Twenty-nine years old Bhavya, the third generation politician in the former Chief Minister Bhajan Lal’s family, has retained the seat that has been with the Bhajan Lal’s family since 1968. As soon he was declared the winner, Bhavya's supporters started celebrating by bursting firecrackers and raising slogans.
“It is a victory of the policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, of the working of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, of the trust of Adampur in Chaudhary Bhajan Lal family,” said Bhavya Bishnoi’s father and former MP Kuldeep Bishnoi. He also expressed gratitude to the Adampur people for trusting them. Confident of his victory, Bhavya had earlier said that the polls were about the “victory margin”.
Haryana Cabinet Minister and senior BJP leader Mool Chand Sharma said that their win was never in doubt, the only thing to be seen was the victory margin, and that the party had scored there as well. Power Minister Ranjit Singh Chautala also described the result as “a warning sign for the Congress”.
Putting up a brave face, senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Deepender Hooda said that the Congress’s performance was “respectable” and that it “gives the party hope for the 2024 elections”.
In 2019, Kuldeep Bishnoi had won by nearly 30,000 votes from Adampur on a Congress ticket. This time, his son contested the bypoll on a BJP ticket, got the JJP’s backing and yet the winning margin got reduced to half. In 2014, the Congress had got barely 10,000 votes when Kuldeep had contested from Adampur on his Haryana Janhit Congress party’s ticket. Now Congress candidate Jai Prakash has got over 51,000 votes. Without the Bishnoi family in our party fold, the Congress has achieved this significant increase in vote share. It gives us hope that we can eventually break the Bishnoi stronghold in the 2024 polls,” Hooda said.
Meanwhile, Sunday’s win is the 15th consecutive poll success for the Bhajan Lal clan. However, this is the first time that this seat has gone into BJP’s kitty. Graduated from the London School of Economics followed by a master’s degree from Oxford, Bhavya will be one of the youngest MLAs in the 90-seat Haryana Assembly.
The bypoll took place as Bhavya’s father and sitting MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi resigned from the Congress and joined the BJP in August. Kuldeep, a two-time MP and four-time MLA, was expelled from the Congress in June after he cross voted against Congress Rajya Sabha candidate Ajay Maken.
The BJP was prompt to give the ticket to Bhavya so that he could debut from the family stronghold. Kuldeep has been trying to launch his son into electoral politics for the past few years.
In the 2019 general election, Bhavya had contested unsuccessfully on a Congress ticket against BJP’s Brijendra Singh in Hisar. He had even lost his deposit in that election.
Apart from contesting from the Bishnoi home seat, Bhavya got the advantage of the dominant Jat votes getting divided as the AAP, the Congress, the INLD had fielded candidates from the community.
The vote share of the Bishnois on the seat has been steadily increasing. Bhavya mopped up 67,492 votes in this bypoll, bettering his father Kuldeep’s tally of 63,693 votes in the 2019 assembly elections. In 2014, Kuldeep got 48,224 votes. That year he was the Haryana Janhit Congress party candidate, a party his father Bhajan Lal had formed in 2007 after leaving the Congress.
Adampur was a stronghold of the Congress, the home bastion of three-time chief minister Bhajan Lal. However, in 2005 following the assembly elections, Bhajan Lal got upset with the Congress choosing Bhupinder Singh Hooda over him for the post of the chief minister. He left the party and created the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) in 2007.
In the 2009 assembly elections, the HJC won six crucial seats. Most of the winners, however, defected to the Congress as Hooda became the chief minister for the second term.
Kuldeep and his wife Renuka were the only two HJC winners in 2014. Two years later, Kuldeep merged the HJC with the Congress but the bonhomie lasted till August this year.
Amid tight security arrangements, the counting of the votes for Adampur seat in Haryana began around 8 am on Sunday morning.
Adampur Elected Youngest Member of Assembly: Khattar
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Sunday said that with the victory of Bhavya Bishnoi in the Adampur byelection, the Haryana assembly got the youngest legislator. The people of Adampur have elected the youngest MLA of the state.
“BJP won the Adampur assembly segment and our party candidate Bhavya has become the youngest MLA. Earlier, Deputy CM Dushyant Chautala was the youngest legislator in the state Assembly. With this victory, now, the number of the BJP members has reached to 41, while the Congress has come down to 30. It is a major change in the Haryana assembly,” said the Chief Minister while celebrating the victory of Bishnoi in the Adampur by-election with party workers on Sunday evening.
Khattar offered sweets to party workers. He also congratulated and thanked the people of Adampur for giving the mandate to BJP in the byelection. “I congratulate and thank the people of Adampur for electing Bhavya in this election. I give the credit of victory to party workers, people of Adampur,” said the CM.
Replying to question, the CM said that their government has done inclusive development of the state without any discrimination. In the past eight years, the government has done development works worth Rs 600 crore in Adampur and the remaining works will be done in the coming two years, the CM added.
He counted the works done by the government in Adampur and said they had constructed a college in Adampur, a railway under bypass, and several works of remodeling and others.He blamed the Congress for neglecting this area and said it had done nothing to develop this area, but BJP MLA Bhavya will develop the area in all manners.