Constituency profile Hisar: Polarisation on caste lines in Jat, non-Jat segments

Tribune News Service

Deepender Deswal

Hisar, March 23

The Hisar Lok Sabha seat, represented by freedom fighters Lala Achint Ram and Thakur Das Bhargava in 1952 and 1957, respectively, in the Lok Sabha, is a crucial seat due to caste polarisation of the electorate over the years.

The Hisar Lok Sabha seat has elected stalwarts like Mani Ram Bagri, Birender Singh, Bhajan Lal and Jai Prakash, who made their mark in the state and national political scene.

The Congress won the seat seven times, of total 18 elections held here until 2019, including a byelection. The anti-Congress fronts won 10 times while the BJP opened its account for the first time in 2019, when its candidate Brijendra Singh won by over three lakh votes in his debut poll.

The first MP, Lala Achint Ram, was among the first three members of the Servants of the People Society founded by Lala Lajpat Rai in Lahore in 1921. After representing Hisar in the Lok Sabha in 1952, he shifted to the Patiala Lok Sabha seat in 1957 and won.

His son Krishan Kant was the Vice-President of India from 1997 to 2002. Ram’s great-granddaughter Neha Dhawan, a resident of Hansi, said it was a matter of pride for the district. “I have written letters to the PM to establish a memorial in his name in Hisar. A road in Delhi was named after him recently,” she said.

Birender Singh, Union minister in the Modi government from 2014-2019, had won in the 1984 Lok Sabha poll by defeating Lok Dal stalwart Om Prakash Chautala.

A former CM, Bhajan Lal, became an MP from here in 2009 on the Haryana Janhit Congress ticket. His son Kuldeep Bishnoi won in the 2011 byelection after Bhajan Lal’s death.

The Anna Hazare agitation, which brought a major shift in the political narrative in 2011, also saw its first impact in the 2011 byelection, when Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi (both members of Anna team) campaigned against Congress candidate Jai Prakash, a three-time MP who represented different parties in each of his wins. He became MP from Janata Dal in 1989, represented Haryana Vikas Party in 1996 and won on Congress ticket in 2004. He lost elections in 1991, 1998, 2005 and 2009.

Though the Devi Lal clan, including his sons Om Prakash Chautala, Ranjit Singh and grandson Ajay Chautala made failed attempts, his great-grandson Dushyant Chautala, as an INLD candidate, broke the jinx when he defeated Bishnoi in the 2014 Lok Sabha poll to become the youngest MP in Parliament at the age of 26.

Rishi Saini, a political observer, said Hisar had also been a nerve centre of socialist activism and anti-Congress politics. “Prominent socialist leader Mani Ram Bagri represented this segment in 1962 and 1980. However, the Hisar seat has witnessed polarisation of caste politics in Jat and non-Jat segments, which does not bode well for the area,” he added.

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