Gurgaon may witness multi-cornered contest

Gurgaon,which earlier came under Mahendergarh parliamentary seat,was recently made a separate constituency after the delimitation process.

At present,Mahendergarh,which has now been clubbed with the newly formed Bhiwani-Mahendergarh constituency,is represented by the ruling Congress’ Rao Inderjit Singh,who is also a Union Minister. Singh is likely to be fielded from the Gurgaon seat this time.

The BSP,which has pitched Zakir Hussein,son of former minister late Tayyeb Hussein,from Gurgaon,would be looking to cash the Muslim votes. Muslims constitute about one-fourth of total number of voters,with Mewat area being dominated by the community.

Tayyeb had been a minister in the then joint Punjab besides serving as a minister in Haryana and Rajasthan.

Zakir was in the Congress for few years before switching over to BSP in April last year.

“We are comfortably placed in Gurgaon and our candidate is son of a leader who commanded great respect in the area,” said BSP’s state general secretary,Krishna Dhami.

Haryana Janhit Congress led by former Congress MP Kuldeep Bishnoi has already declared the candidature of Rao Narbir Singh from Gurgaon seat.

Meanwhile,BJP is likely to field Sudha Yadav,who represented Mahendergarh before Rao Inderjit Singh.

However,INLD sources say they may prevail on BJP to leave the Gurgaon seat for them as the newly carved constituency has a sizeable number of Muslim voters which may not put the alliance in a winning position.

The parliamentary constituency is spread in three districts of Haryana – Gurgaon,Mewat and Rewari and consists of nine assembly segments Patoudi,Badshahpur,Gurgaon and Sohna of district Gurgaon,Nuh,Firojpur Jhirka and Punhana of district Mewat and Bawal and Rewari of Rewari district.

According to Gurgaon’s Deputy Commissioner Deepti Umashankar,who is also the district electoral officer,Gurgaon LS seat presently has 12,30,949 voters,out of which 6,57,161 are men while 5,73,788 are women voters.