Chandigarh: The country’s richest woman and Jindal Group chairperson Savitri Jindal, who has defied BJP and is fighting as an independent against party nominee Kamal Gupta, faces a stiff multi-corner electoral battle for Hisar seat in the upcoming state assembly polls. Besides independent Savitri, 74, a two-time MLA and former minister, and BJP’s Gupta, also a minister and a two-time MLA, in the fray are Congress’ Ramniwas Rara, INLD’s Shyam Lal Garg, Jannayak Janta Party’s (JJP’s) Ravi Ahuja and another independent Gautam Sardana, a former mayor.
She had joined politics after the death of her husband O P Jindal, a senior Congress leader, in a helicopter crash in 2005. She won the Hisar bypoll the same year and was made minister in Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s government. She again won the seat in 2009 and was again made a minister in Hooda government. She lost to BJP’s Kamal Gupta in 2014 and did not contest the 2019 polls.
She had expressed her willingness to contest this time to serve the people of Hisar, claiming that her family has been holding sway for several decades, but was denied ticket by BJP.
According to poll watchers, she is being seen as a formidable challenger as prior to BJP she was with Congress and has a significant influence in the constituency because of the family legacy. While her son Naveen Jindal is current BJP MP from Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat and she had also joined BJP earlier this year along with him, she has jumped into the fray after she was denied the party ticket from Hisar to avenge her defeat by Gupta in 2014.
The BJP candidate Gupta faces a tough task of retaining the seat for the third term in the wake of possible shift of saffron party’s votes in favour of Savitri besides that of Congress. There is also a possibility of a dent in his vote share by Sardana, a Punjabi, whose number is also huge in Hisar and who have traditionally been aligned towards BJP and Congress.
Congress’ Rara eyes the Jat and Saini votes, besides that of OBC votes, having the backing of Congress’ Kumari Selja, a tall Dalit leader, hopes to bring back the seat to the party after a gap of 10 years. The segment has about 30,000 Baniya votes, 20,000 Punjabis, 13,000 Jats and about 10,000 Brahmins.
Meanwhile, in another development, the Zee Group owner and former Rajya Sabha member, Subhash Chandra has also also announced his support to Savitri. Both Savitri and Subhash Chandra belong to Hisar. He became a Rajya Sabha member as an independent candidate from Haryana with the support of BJP in 2016.
SEAT PROFILE:
TOTAL VOTERS: 1,82,083
MALE: 95,772
FEMALE: 86,308
THIRD GENDER: 03
