The biggest similarity between these two is that their fathers contested the assembly elections from the same seats in 2019 but both had to face defeat. However, Jaiprakash managed to win the Lok Sabha elections from Hisar this year, while Surjewala has already reached the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan in 2022.
The last date for nomination for Haryana assembly elections has ended. Congress has fielded its candidates on a total of 89 seats, while one seat has been given to CPI(M). On Wednesday, when Congress released its third list of 40 candidates late night, one name surprised the most, that was the name of Aditya Surjewala. He has been made the candidate from Kaithal seat. Aditya is the younger son of Congress General Secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Randeep Singh Surjewala. In this list, the party had given ticket to another leader’s son. He is Chandramohan, son of former Chief Minister Bhajan Lal, who has been made the candidate from Panchkula.
In this election, the party has launched the son of another veteran leader in Kaithal, whose name is Vikas Saharan. He has been launched from the Kalayat reserved seat of the district. Vikas Saharan is the son of MP Jaiprakash from Hisar. It is said about him that Vikas was so confident about his ticket that he had filed his nomination as a Congress candidate even before getting the ticket.
The biggest similarity between these two is that their fathers contested the assembly elections from the same seats in 2019 but both had to face defeat. However, Jaiprakash managed to win the Lok Sabha elections from Hisar this year, while Surjewala has already reached the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan in 2022. There was a discussion for a long time that Surjewala
He would contest the assembly elections from Kaithal but the party gave the ticket to his son instead of him. Surjewala had also anticipated this and had prepared his younger son for this.
Although Surjewala has been a minister in former Chief Minister Bhupendra Singh Hooda’s government from 2009 to 2014, he is believed to be opposed to the Hooda faction and a soldier of Kumari Selja’s faction. Selja has also not got an assembly ticket this time, although she wanted to contest the elections. This time the party has given preference to giving tickets to the youth. Apart from this, MPs have not been fielded in the assembly elections. Due to this formula, Surjewala, Selja and Jaiprakash could not get tickets.
Both Jaiprakash and Surjewala had realized that they were not going to get the ticket. Therefore, both the leaders got their sons launched in Kaithal in time. Before ticket distribution, Surjewala held a public meeting in Kaithal in which he launched his younger son Aditya. On the other hand, Jaiprakash was directly pressurizing the party high command to field his son and he succeeded in that.
The path of both the great sons is not easy
Kaithal assembly seat has been with the Surjewala family from 2005 to 2014. Aditya’s father Randeep Singh Surjewala and grandfather Shamsher Singh Surjewala have also been MLAs from here. Shamsher Singh Surjewala was MLA from here from 2005 to 2009 and Randeep Singh Surjewala from 2009 to 2014. However, in 2019, he was defeated by BJP’s Lilaram by a huge margin of votes. Despite the farmers’ movement and anti-incumbency wave against the BJP government, while it will be a big challenge for the BJP to win this seat again, it may also be a tough task for Aditya to regain the legacy as he is competing with a sitting MLA.
Apart from this, there are two more political alliances in the fray against him, which can divide the votes. In 2019, Randeep Surjewala lost by just 1246 votes, while the JJP candidate got around 10 thousand votes and the BSP candidate got around 2200 votes. This time there is an alliance of JJP and Azad Samaj Party and another alliance of INLD and BSP, who are contesting the elections.
In Kalayat, Vikas Saharan is pitted against BJP’s Kamlesh Dhanda, who defeated Vikas’s father Jaiprakash by a margin of about 9000 votes in 2019. In this election, Vikas will also have to face AAP candidate Anurag Dhanda, who has entered the fray to break into his vote bank. Apart from these, JJP-Azad Party’s joint candidate Pritam Mehra Kolekhan is also in the fray.
