BJP hopes to win Baroda Bypoll, Cong says People will Teach them a Lesson

PTI, Oct 8, 2020, 8:02 PM IST

Chandigarh: The BJP on Thursday exuded confidence of winning the Baroda assembly seat in Sonipat in the November bypoll while the Congress asserted that people are waiting to teach the ruling party a lesson for its anti-farmer policies. Haryana BJP chief O P Dhankar said the Baroda people will ensure the BJP candidate’s victory in the bypoll by voting for the development.

The people of Baroda constituency, like the rest of the state, want development. They will vote for development, Dhankar told reporters in Gurgaon in response to queries over the poll prospect of the ruling dispensation candidate. Discarding Dhankar’s claim, Haryana Congress president Kumari Selja asserted that the people are eagerly waiting for the bypoll to teach this anti-farmer and anti-people government a lesson.

Not even one section of people, including the poor, employees, youths and farmers, who are already up in arms against the three farm laws, is happy with this government, she claimed. The Baroda assembly seat, traditionally a Congress stronghold, has fallen vacant following the death of the party’s MLA Shri Krishan Hooda in April this year.

Dwelling upon the BJP’s developmental work, Dhankar said the people have seen his party’s government work in the state during its previous term and have been seeing it now for the last one year of the BJP-JJP rule. On Baroda being considered a Congress stronghold, Dhankar said Jind too was viewed so but the BJP won the seat in a bypoll early last year and retained it even later during the state assembly elections in October 2019.

None of the two parties has decided their candidates for the Baroda bypoll as yet. While the state BJP is to hold a meeting on October 10 to choose the names of its probable candidates for the seat, Shelja said her party will soon announce the name of its candidate.

She said the party’s state in-charge Vivek Bansal will consult senior leaders from the state and a list of probable candidates would be made and forwarded to the party high command to select the candidate. She told reporters that so far 25 aspirants have applied for the Congress ticket.

The bypoll for the Baroda assembly seat is to be held on November 3 and the counting of votes is to be undertaken on November 10.