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Eye on Jat land, JJP missing in action in south Haryana

Gurgaon: With an eye on Jat votes and the Haryana heartland, Dushyant Chautala’s Jannayak Janta Party ( JJP ) is largely missing in action in southern Haryana, which includes Gurgaon, Faridabad, Mewat, Palwal, Mahendergarh and Rewari. The party biggies, including Dushyant, Naina and Digvijay Chautala, have not campaigned in this belt even once, with less than a week left for the elections.



In Gurgaon, for instance, the party hardly has any momentum. Here the party has fielded Sube Singh, a former Congress politician. However, people within JJP itself aren’t too excited about his candidature. Singh is optimistic though. “Even though the star campaigners have been missing, our party is working very hard in Gurgaon, Badshapur, Sohna and Pataudi.”

Talking to TOI, party leader Dushyant said, “Southern Haryana has a lot of scope in terms of employment, industrialisation and infrastructure growth, and we are determined to make the entire area as prosperous as Gurgaon and Noida are. We are hopeful to win at least half of the seats in this region.”

The party also struggles due to its lack of connect with urban voters. Its attempt to reach out to them through its alliance with AAP in the Lok Sabha polls was unsuccessful. In terms of an organisation structure as well, JJP is far behind its national counterparts and was appointing district-level coordinators until some time back.

One of the seats in Gurgaon where JJP is hopeful of victory is Sohna, where it has fielded former Congress member Rohtansh Khatana. He is not only the richest candidate in entire Haryana but is also quite popular in the area. Similarly, JJP candidate from Punhana, Iqbal Jaildar has also jumped ship from the Congress recently. In all, 12 politicians have left Congress and joined JJP in this election season.

However, in the absence of an organisation structure and hardly any campaigning by the JJP biggies, victory won’t be easy for these candidates. All the three Chautalas are busy campaigning in the heartland of the state — central Haryana that includes Jind, Fatehabad, Hisar, Bhiwani, Kaithal, Sonepat and Dadri. While Dushyant is fighting from Uchana in Hisar, his mother is contesting from Badhra. “We are mostly focussing on the areas where the party commands strong support,” said a party spokesperson.

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