Cong fortunes appear bleak

KARNAL: Frustration is writ large on faces of Congressmen in the Karnal parliamentary constituency because of the party high command’s delay in announcing its candidate.
While BJP’s Union home minister for state, ID Swami, who has been re-nominated from the Karnal seat, had already started his campaign over 20 days ago in anticipation of his candidature.
Swami told Times News Network that he had toured about 50 villages to revive his contacts with voters and workers. A divided Congress could definitely benefit him. The Congress here is split into three main groups led by Bhajan Lal, BS Hooda and Virender Singh. They are projecting different candidates. RC Sharma, a former CBI Director, Avinash Palliwal and Kuldeep Sharma son of Chiranji Lal — four times MP from Karnal — are the names floating about. Besides, there are wheels within wheels and a number of sub-groups at the local level are ready to change loyalties at the fall of an eyelid.
Congress also lacks a credible leader here who could exploit disenchantment with the Chautala Government. Then, the party needs a brahmin leader in this constituency that has been traditionally a stronghold of that particular caste group.
Every brahmin with a following seems ready to jump into the fray. The newly floated Ekta Shakti had already announced Raj Kumar Sharma as its candidate. HVP has also chosen Ram Chander Jhangra with an eye on brahmin votes. BJP’S ID Swami is also a brahmin. Each party has got its eyes glued to about 1.30 lakh Brahmin voters.
Another dilemma confronting Congress is that none amongst its projected candidates is a grass root level worker. Congress had its traditional vote bank of about 2.6 lakh voters out of a total of 12 lakh votes in Karnal constituency.
But as SC’s and BC’s as well as rajputs have been drifting away from Congress, its vote bank has considerably shrunk. Another disparaging factor is that since the dominant castes amongst sikhs, jats and rors are no longer outspoken supporters of Congress, its main stay could be urban punjabi voters. The difficulties for Congress will increase manifold if Bahujan Samaj Party also puts up a candidate from here.
As for the BJP, Swami has much to explain. The main grouse against him is that during his four-year tenure he did not come visiting his supporters. Voters are upset that not much employment was generated at the local level even though Swami claims that he got over Rs 10,000 crore for the refinery project in Panipat. He also got Jan Shatabadi, Sach Khand Express and Malwa Express to stop at Karnal. But Swami has no explanation for lack of progress on railway over-bridge on Kachwa Road and four over-bridges on GT Road bye-pass.
Swami’s boat will be further upset once the INLD announces its candidate. Invariably, INLD or earlier parties led by Devi Lal, have polled votes between 1.10 lakh to 1.40 lakh. How to compensate this potential drain from his vote bank is Swami’s major headache. Without the support of the INLD, BJP may not be on as sure a footing as it was last time around.