The ruling BJP on Tuesday announced its second list of 21 candidates for the Haryana Assembly elections scheduled for October 5. It dropped seven sitting MLAs, including two ministers. To reduce the anti-incumbency wave, the BJP has dropped 15 of its 40 sitting MLAs (over 37%). Besides, the party has fielded 40 new faces (46%) in the 87 seats declared so far.
Along with this, BJP has fielded its candidates on 87 out of 90 assembly seats, while AAP has announced 61 names. AAP’s list has come a day after the seat-sharing talks with Congress failed.
BJP’s Captain Yogesh Bairagi is pitted against Congress’ Vinesh Phogat from Julana assembly constituency. Ministers Banwari Lal (Bawal) and Seema Trikha (Barkhal) have been replaced by Krishan Kumar and Dhanesh Adalkhah respectively.
The five dropped MLAs include state chief Mohan Lal Badoli (Rai), Nirmal Rani (Ganour), Praveen Dagar (Hathiin), Jagdish Nayar (Hodal) and Satya Prakash Jarawata (Pataudi).
Senior BJP leaders Krishna Gahlawat has been fielded from Baroli, Devendra Kaushik from Ganaur, Bimla Choudhary from Pataudili, Manoj Rawat from Hathin and Harinder Singh Ramratan from Hodal.
Other prominent BJP candidates include Sanjay Singh (Nuh), Om Prakash Yadav (Narnaul), Manish Grover (Rohtak), Krishan Bedi (Narwana), Jai Bhagwan Sharma (Pehowa) and Pawan Saini (Narayangarh).
The AAP has fielded former ministers Chhatar Pal Singh (Barwala), Jawahar Lal (Bawal), Krishan Bajaj (Thanesar) and Bhupendra Beniwal (Adampur).