BJP and Congress bet on new faces, chances of a direct fight on this seat

Ganganagar: There seems to be a direct contest between the BJP and Congress candidates for the Ganganagar Lok Sabha seat reserved for the Scheduled Caste. This time, both Congress and BJP have given an opportunity to new faces and both are public representatives.

Congress candidate Kuldeep Indora is the district chief of Sriganganagar, while BJP candidate Priyanka Balan is the chairperson of Anupgarh Municipal Council. Priyanka Balan started her political innings from the Anupgarh Assembly constituency. BJP had given her a ticket from Anupgarh Assembly constituency in 2013. However, the party fielded Shimla Bawri as its candidate after cancelling her ticket as she was less than the eligible age of 25 years, to contest polls, at that time.

Hiralal Indora, father of Congress candidate Kuldeep Indora, was elected MLA four times. While being a minister, he handled the responsibilities of many departments. Congress gave a ticket to Kuldeep from the Anupgarh Assembly seat twice, but he did not get success. In the municipal elections, Indora was successful in making his wife Seema Indora the Chairman.

The big thing is that BJP has canceled the ticket of its 5-time MP Nihal Chand in Ganganagar and has made Priyanka Balan its candidate. Earlier there were talks of Nihal Chand being unhappy over the denial of ticket, but ending all such speculations he has joined the election campaign in support of the BJP candidate.

In the 17 Lok Sabha elections held since independence till 2019, Congress has won this seat 10 times, while BJP has won it five times. Janata Party and Bharatiya Lok Dal have won it once each.

It is also interesting that not even once has a nonMeghwal MP been elected from this seat. This sequence, which started from Pannaram Barupal, was continued by Begaram, Birbal Ram and Shankar Pannu. Even Begaram’s son Nihalchand did not allow this tradition to be broken.

The main reason for this trend is that in this Scheduled Caste dominated area, Meghwal community constitutes one-third of the population, hence every party bets on the candidate of Meghwal community.

BJP candidate Priyanka Balan herself comes from the Meghwal caste but she is married to the Arora community. Whereas Congress candidate Kuldeep Indora comes from Dhanka community. The votes of Dhanka community are very less in the Lok Sabha compared to other castes. However, Indora’s problem is that being angry with his candidature, many local leaders including former MP Shankar Pannu have left Congress and joined BJP. It can be seen that out of the eight Assembly seats of this Lok Sabha constituency, 5 are occupied by Congress, 2 by BJP and one by an independent candidate. Still, it seems to be a very difficult challenge for Congress to stop BJP’s hat-trick of victory on this seat. BJP national president JP Nadda has already held a meeting in Hanumangarh, while Congress’ star campaigner Rahul Gandhi will hold a public meeting in Anupgarh on April 11.