The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) late on Wednesday evening completed the process of naming party nominees to all 90 seats for the October 5 Haryana assembly elections 2024. While a second list of 21 nominees was released on Tuesday, following the first list of 67 on September 4, the final third list of the remaining three nominees was released on Wednesday.

In its second list of 21 nominees, BJP appeared to have more seriously addressed the anti-incumbency concerns over its 10-year rule in the state, fielding 14 new faces and denying renomination to seven incumbent MLAs, including two cabinet ministers.

The party has pitched an OBC nominee Capt Yogesh Bairagi against former Olympian wrestler-turned-politician Vinesh Phogat from Julana. The Pehowa nominee, named in the first list, has been replaced after a couple of embarrassing old videos and photographs featuring the nominee surfaced on the social media.

Alliance with HLP dissolved: In the third list too, all three nominees named for Sirsa, Mahendragarh and Faridabad NIT are fresh faces. The party has dissolved its alliance with Gopal Goyal Kanda’s Haryana Lokhit Party (HLP). In 2019, the Sirsa seat had been left to the HLP from which Gopal Goyal Kanda had won by the thinnest of margins (600+ votes) against Gokul Setia, who contested as an independent.

Ram Bilas Sharma denied renomination: The party has also denied renomination to its former Haryana minister and state party chief Ram Bilas Paswan from Mahendragarh despite he and RSS member Kailash Pali having already filed their respective nomination papers in the constituency as party nominees.

Cabinet ministers Dr Banwari Lal, Seema Trikha replaced

The ministers who were denied tickets in the second list released by the party were from South Haryana – Health Minister Dr Banwari Lal from Bawal-SC in Rewari district and School Education minister Seema Trikha from Badkhal in Faridabad district.

One person, one post comes in Badoli’s way: State party president Mohan Lal Badoli had also been denied a renomination from Rai assembly constituency in adherence to the party’s one person, one post policy. After his defeat by a narrow margin in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, in which he was fielded from Sonipat, he had replaced Nayab Singh Saini to the post in July this year after the latter, who was holding dual responsibilities since he succeeded Manohar Lal as chief minister in March, relinquished the charge as head of the state unit.

Krishna Gahlawat fills his place: In Badoli’s place, BJP has named a former minister in the Bansi Lal government in the late 1990s, Krishna Gahlawat. Later she had joined the Congress and in 2014 quit the party to join the BJP. She contested the 2014 election on the party symbol from Rai but finished a close third behind the Congress and INLD in a hotly contested triangular.

The influence of BJP’s traditional ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), was also apparently quite evident in the list with at least five of its nominees being given a ticket and its surveys given weightage wherever those conducted by professional private agencies raised doubts.

Focus on South Haryana & GT Road

In releasing the list, the saffron party had concentrated heavily on maximising benefits from the Ahirwal belt and rest of South Haryana, which send 23 legislators to the state assembly, and the GT road belt running from Sonipat district to Ambala district which accounts for another 30 seats.

In South Haryana, apart from replacing the two ministers, the party in its second list denied renomination to its five other candidates of the 2019 elections – in Pataudi-SC (MLA Satya Prakash Jravta), Punahana, Hathin (MLA Praveen Dagar), Hodal (MLA Jagdish Nayar), and Nuh assembly constituencies.

The Muslim face of the BJP in Nuh, Zakir Hussain has been replaced in the light of the 2023 Nuh riots. Minister of state in CM Nayab Singh Saini’s council of ministers and MLA from Sohna-Taoru assembly constituency falling in Gurugram and Nuh districts Sanjay Singh, is the new party’s nominee there.

Son of former Haryana minister Surajmal Singh, Sanjay Singh was part of the BJP delegation, headed by then state party president Om Prakash Dhankhar, which visited Nuh in the aftermath of the riots.

Zakir Hussain, as an INLD candidate in the 2014 elections, had defeated Aftab Ahmed of the Congress by a huge margin of 33,000+ votes, but after switching over to the BJP and contesting on its ticket in 2019 he had lost to Aftab by 4,000 votes.

The other Muslim face from the 2019 elections, Naseem Ahmed has been renominated from Ferozepur Jhirka constituency despite the former INLD leader having lost to Mamman Khan of the Congress by a huge margin of 37,000 votes after joining the BJP and being fielded as the party candidate. In the 2014 elections, as INLD candidate, Naseem had, defeated Mamman Khan by 3,000 votes.

The party has decided to put up a Muslim candidate, Aizaz Khan, this time from Punahana. In 2019 it had fielded a new woman entrant into politics Nauksham Chaudhary, who lost from Punahana but later won on the party ticket from Kaman assembly constituency in Bharatpur district during the 2023 assembly elections in Rajasthan.

Pehowa nominee replaced

The party replaced its nominee Kawaljeet Singh Ajrana from Pehowa, who was named in the first list, after being embarrassed by old videos of him going viral in which he is seen shaming Prime Minster Narender Modi and then Haryana Chief minister Manohar lal for their performance.

Some old photographs of him celebrating with and hugging Pakistani security officials during his visit to the neighbouring country also appeared on social media.

Under pressure from the party, which he joined only in July this year, the former Akali leader and spokesman of the Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (HSGPC) returned his party ticket. He was replaced in the second list by Jai Bhagwan Sharma.

Ajrana had earlier replaced incumbent BJP MLA from the constituency and former minister Sandeep Singh, who is embroiled in a molestation case involving a Haryana government woman junior athletics coach when he was sports minister. The court framed charges against the former Olympian and Indian hockey captain in July this year and he is awaiting trial.

OBC face Capt Yogesh Bairagi Against jat Vinesh Phogat

The party has pitted an OBC face against former Olympian wrestler Vinesh Phogat of the Congress, who belongs to the Jat community. Vinesh had recently joined the Congress after a shattering disqualification from the Paris Olympics ahead of her gold medal bout and was immediately rewarded with a party ticket to contest the elections from Julana constituency.

The BJP nominee, Capt Yogesh Bairagi, is a former commercial airlines pilot and currently holding responsibility as vice president of the state unit of Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the party. In fielding Yogesh, the party is looking to consolidate all non-Jat votes against Vinesh.

The BJP in its second list also replaced its 2019 election candidates in Naraingarh, Pundri, Assandh, Ghanaur, Baroda, Narwana, Dabwali and Ellenabad, all of whom had lost.

The Rohtak candidate from the 2019 elections, Manish Grover, has however, been rewarded with a renomination for putting up a spirited fight against Congress’ Bharat Bhushan Batra, eventually going down to the latter by less than 3,000 votes.

The last day for filing of nominations for the October 5 polls in the state expired today. Counting of votes is scheduled for October 8 and results are expected to be announced in the afternoon the same day.

The BJP had returned to power in the state for a second straight term in the 2019 elections, through it did not secure a majority on its own. Winning 40 seats it fell short of the magic figure of 46 and had to cobble together a post poll alliance with the JJP which won 10 seats. Their coalition government lasted for nearly the entire tenure before it was dissolved following differences in the runup to the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year.

BJP’s 2nd list

BJP’s 3rd list