As the political tussle heats up ahead of polling on October 21, Chief Minister and BJP contestant from Karnal, Manohar Lal Khattar is a confident man now and has been using every tool at his disposal, from social media to crowded election rallies, to drive his re-election pitch.
The BJP is looking at a "historic win" for the chief minister in the assembly election with a margin of more than 100,000 votes, as the opposition appears to have given up on the Karnal seat.
The main face of BJP’s campaign for the Haryana assembly elections, Khattar, has been touring the entire state to campaign for party candidates. Given his schedule, the CM has not been able to devote as much time to campaign in his own assembly seat, Karnal, and this is where support from within the saffron party is helping him.
The BJP came to power on its own in Haryana for the first time in 2014, winning 47 of the 90 seats with a vote share of 33.2 per cent. Khattar contested his first election and was also the party’s first chief minister in Haryana. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the party’s vote share jumped to more than 58 per cent in the state and it won all 10 parliamentary constituencies. This time, the BJP is eyeing more than 75 seats in the 90-member state assembly and has given the slogan “Ab ki baar 75 paar”.
The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), which won the second highest number of seats in the 2014 assembly polls, has not fielded any candidate against chief minister on Karnal seat.
Khattar (65), former RSS 'pracharak' said the state BJP government worked on the principle of "Haryana Ek, Haryanvi Ek" (united Haryana, united Haryanvis) to take everyone along the path of the development. He says that his rivals long mocked him as an “anari” before acknowledging him as a “khiladi” after seeing his government’s performance, but he would like to shun the monikers of novice and player to just be a “sevak”, a servant of the people.
Khattar won the election in 2014 with a margin of nearly 64,000 votes with former Congress leader and two-time MLA from Karnal, Jai Prakash Gupta finishing second while contesting as an independent. Gupta joined the BJP earlier this year and is now actively part of the CM’s campaign in the constituency while Khattar is on a whirlwind tour of the state. Earlier, Sumita Singh of the Congress had won from Karnal in the 2005 and 2009 polls.
The Congress has now fielded Tarlochan Singh, former chairman of the state minority commission, and the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) has given a ticket to Tej Bahadur Yadav. Then a BSF constable, Yadav made headlines in 2017 when he uploaded videos on social media complaining about the quality of food served in the force. Later, he was dismissed from the BSF. Tej Bahadur had sought to contest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha polls from Varanasi in 2019, but his nomination was rejected by the Election Commission.
Khattar has not campaigned much in the constituency, coming only to file his nomination and for an event on Dussehra. The state unit of the BJP has launched a campaign, ‘Main Bhi Manohar’ (I, too, am Manohar), with young party activists campaigning in Karnal sporting the slogan and pictures of the CM.
A BJP leader said, “The mood in Karnal reflects in the entire “GT Belt” of the state, from Sonepat to Panipat, Karnal and Kuruksehtra, a region which the party had swept in 2014 as well.” He said that a core committee, a few sub-commitees, 100 active members and 5,000 panna pramukhs (page in-charges) are holding the fort for Khattar in his absence from Karnal and have been working out of a war room in the City. As he is busy most of the day, Khattar discusses the Karnal campaign with his committee members at midnight or in the wee hours.
In the last 10 months, Khattar has managed to neutralise the Opposition by getting INLD leader Manoj Wadhwa, the husband of Asha Wadhwa who finished second in the mayoral polls, to join the BJP. Jai Prakash Gupta, the Congress candidate pitched against Khattar in the 2014 polls, has also joined the party. A section of Karnal, which sought to dismiss Khattar as an outsider five years ago, has finally warmed up to him.
Sohan Singh, resident Karnal city said that Khattar is an honest Chief Minister. The city has developed under his watch. Roads have been repaired, drainage revamped, traffic policemen are doing their job and the city is cleaner than ever. We used to be flooded with dengue cases, but this year we haven’t heard of any.” Aman Chowdhary of the same city said the CM enjoyed huge popularity in Karnal and that the political mood was “completely one-sided”. Karnal is regarded as a clean city and is one among the 100 chosen by the Centre to be developed as 'Smart Cities'.Khattar has been credited with improving civic infrastructure and sanitation in Karnal, he added.
Sumitra Manchanda, resident of Karnal city and student of Panjab University (PU) said, “CM Khattar has done nothing. I couldn’t get a job. There has been job crisis in the market. I will think twice before vote for him.” Anurag, another PU student said that Chief Minister has made applying for jobs ‘more difficult’. “I saw on YouTube that now you will have to clear an exam to even fill up the job application form.”
Confident of returning to power for a second term in office, Khattar said his recent rallies that his government ran the state untainted by corruption or bias towards any caste. In the last lap of his hectic campaign for the state assembly elections, Khattar said that the BJP will receive support from all communities.
Moving towards election day with the slogan “Ab ki baar 75 paar”, Khattar said the BJP government in Haryana had worked for the overall development of the state without any biases. “We ran the government in a transparent manner in last five years…and ensured all around development of the state…without any bias towards any specific caste,” he said.
"BJP is getting overwhelming support from all sections of the people in the state and will come back to power with thumping majority,” he said, adding that the people of the state had rejected the opposition’s caste-based negative politics. Khattar, who is crisscrossing the state and travelling more than 400 km daily, said the BJP gave a stable, honest and development-oriented government in the past five years without indulging in favouritism and nepotism.