Rebel BJP MP Raj Kumar Saini, who had last year floated his own political outfit—Loktantra Suraksha Party—is gearing up to take on mainstream parties—BJP and Congress—from Kurukshetra parliamentary seat in the ensuing Lok Sabha polls.
Saini’s LSP had last month stitched ties with Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to contest on 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana. While eight seats were allotted to BSP, two seats went to LSP.
In 2014 parliamentary polls, Raj Kumar Saini had won from Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat on a BJP’s ticket.
After an alliance with the BSP, Saini’s LSP was allotted parliamentary seats of Sonepat and Bhiwani-Mahendragarh while other eight seats including Kurukshetra, two reserved constituencies of Sirsa and Ambala among others had gone to BSP’s kitty.
However, after BSP’s insistence and party workers demand, Saini is now keen to contest from Kurukshetra seat again.
Confirming the same, LSP chief Raj Kumar Saini, while talking to The Pioneer said, “I will contest Lok Sabha polls and have already begun my campaign in Kurukshetra.”
Saini said, “The party workers have been demanding that I should contest from Kurukshetra seat. We had given the Kurukshetra seat to BSP during our seat-sharing pact, but after the demand of party workers and their feedback, we have decided to reconsider it. An announcement in this regard will be made soon.”
LSP had joined hands with BSP, which in turn had broken its 10-month old alliance with the Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana.
If the BSP-LSP combine goes ahead with Saini’s nomination from Kurushetra seat, he is likely to create trouble for the BJP and Congress in the polls.
Industrialist-turned-politician Naveen Jindal, who had won the Lok Sabha elections in 2004 and 2009 with a comfortable margin in Kurukshetra, is the frontrunner for a Congress’ ticket on this seat again. On the other hand, the BJP has shortlisted names of the Minister of State for Mines and Geology, Nayab Saini and MLA Pawan Saini for Kurukshetra seat.
Notably, riding high on a Modi wave, Raj Kumar Saini had won the Kurukshetra parliamentary seat, trouncing INLD’s Balbir Singh Saini by around 1.29 lakh votes in 2014 polls. The BJP wanting to tap into the OBC community of Saini had fielded him in Kurukshetra last time. There is a mixed population of various communities in the parliamentary constituency, with the Jats having more than 2 lakh voters while no Jat candidate has always won the Kurukshetra seat.
Known for his strong anti-Jat statements, Saini had distanced himself from the ruling BJP after the violent Jat quota agitation 2016 which had resulted in bitterly divided Haryana on caste lines. Saini has time and again spoken against Jat reservation under the OBC category, and has been projecting himself as a prominent OBC leader in Haryana.