Chandigarh: A fierce electoral battle stares at Ranjit Chautala, 79, and a two-time former cabinet minister, and his grandnephew, Arjun Chautala, 32 and a first-timer, in the Rania constituency of poll-bound Haryana’s Sirsa district in the upcoming October 5 state assembly election.

While Ranjit, who has also been a Rajya Sabha member, is contesting as an independent candidate, Arjun is an Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) nominee. Rania is among one of several assembly segments in Sirsa district which have been the strong-hold of the Chautala clan.

Ranjit, is an estranged youngest brother of INLD supremo Om Prakash Chautala, and was in Congress for decades; he was first elected in 1987 and then in 2019 and was a Rajya Sabha member in 1990. He had supported BJP in 2019 as it had fallen short of majority in the House of 90 members, and he was made a cabinet minister for power and jails, by the then chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar.

However, he had recently joined the saffron party even as he also unsuccessfully fought the Hisar Lok Sabha election on BJP symbol. He was trounced by Congress’ Jai Prakash by a margin of over 63,000 votes. He quit the BJP after he was denied a party ticket from Rania seat.

Ranjit Chautala, who has studied upto Class XII, is fighting an assembly election for the first time, is son of INLD leader Abhay Chautala; Arjun had unsuccessfully fought 2019 Lok Sabha election from Kurukshetra seat which was won by BJP’s Naveen Jindal. Arjun had polled over 60,000 votes then.

Notably, Ranjit Chautala has been backed by the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) - a splinter outfit of INLD – which was floated by Ajay Chautala, the elder son of Om Prakash Chautala. The JJP has not fielded its candidate from Rania seat. Also, pertinently, while the INLD has an alliance with BSP, the JJP has had alliance with Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram).

The BJP which had stitched an alliance with JJP after the 2019 assembly election when it lacked the majority and the JJP had 10 MLAs, had snapped its ties with JJP in March, this year. The BJP had also expelled Ranjit Singh after he announced to fight as an independent after being denied the party ticket. Both these candidates are Jat as Rania has about 35% Jat voters followed by OBC and Dalit and others belonging to other castes.

The two candidates face Congress’ Sarv Mitter Kamboj, a YouTube journalist, BJP’s Sheeshpal Kamboj and Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP’s) Harpinder Singh.

SEAT PROFILE:

TOTAL VOTERS: 1,89,408

MALE: 1,00,036

FEMALE: 89,368

THIRD GENDER: 04