With the lok Sabha elections round the corner and Assembly elections less than a year away, it is time for political rallies by all the parties in Haryana.
The latest in the line of a series of political rallies is by the Congress at Gohana in Sonipat district. The rally is being considered as a show of strength for Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda who has been battling internal rivals within the party as well as opposition parties in the State.
The Gohana rally is meant to celebrate Hooda Government completing four years of its second term. Hooda and his supporters want to make a big show of it to send a clear message across Haryana for the lok Sabha and Assembly elections next year. The rally is to be held at a sprawling 500 acres venue and tens of thousands are expected to attend. Congress president Sonia Gandhi or vice-president Rahul Gandhi could be the main Speakers in the rally depending on their commitments elsewhere in the country.
It was BJP which started the series of political rallies when prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, addressed a rally in September for ex-servicemen in Rewari in which former Indian Army chief, General VK Singh, shared the dais with him. This rally set the benchmark for the sheer number of people who attended it to make it a success.
Indian National lok Dal (INlD), Haryana’s main opposition party, put up its own show of strength in a different way last week in Kurukshetra, the town that is linked to the Mahabharata epic.
The INlD not only choked the State’s highways, especially Haryana’s lifeline, NH-1 (National Highway No. 1), with supporters and their vehicles trying to reach the venue but also ensured a huge attendance at the rally, which was organized to mark the 100th birth anniversary of former deputy prime minister Devi lal.
What was unique about the rally was that leaders of all hues and parties shared the dais. They included Punjab Chief Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal patron Parkash Singh Badal, BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, former Assam chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta (Asom Gana Parishad), leaders of the Telegu Desam Party (TDP) and even the Congress MP from Gurgaon, Rao Inderjit Singh.
While the INlD ensured the presence of these leaders, the party was surely missing its own big names — former chief minister and INlD president Om Prakash Chautala and his elder son Ajay Chautala. Both are behind bars after being convicted in January in a teachers’ recruitment scam.
The BJP has no alliance with the INlD in Haryana, even though it has one with the Akali Dal in Punjab. The Badal and Chautala families are considered close and that prompted Badal to remark at the rally that the INlD and BJP should enter a tie-up in Haryana. At present, the BJP, which once had an alliance with the INlD, has a tie-up with the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) led by Kuldeep Bishnoi, son of former Haryana chief minister Bhajan lal.
Bishnoi too is on a rath yatra across the State to strengthen his roots amongst the people ahead of the polls. He is the only MP from the party and represents Hissar in the lok Sabha.
The show of strength and political ability in managing bigger numbers is a sure sign of being a big shot in Haryana. In the next one year, the state’s top politicians will try to ensure that they come out with flying colours on this count.