Rasta Aur Basta

During 10 years of his rule, Hooda made Rohtak, Sonipat, and Jhajjar his fortress. (Image: @INCHaryana on Twitter)  In 2005, a new page was added to the political history of Haryana when Bhupender Singh Hooda became the 9 th Chief Minister of the state. Son of a freedom fighter, Ranbir Singh, who was also the prominent face of political circles in Rohtak, also contested from Kiloi a couple of times. But Bhupinder didn’t get the state’s throne because of his family, he earned it. While Hooda, who contested from Garhi Sampla-Kiloi, himself got 65.82 of vote share and won with 58074 votes, highest vote margin in the state. A month after factional changes, Congress performed well in the recently concluded elections winning 31   seats and getting 28.1 percent of vote share under the leadership of Kumari Selja and Hooda. Once again he is branded as an unchallenged Jat leader in the region. Senior Journalist from Rohtak and author of book ‘Chaudhar ki Raajniti’, Dr. Satish

CM Manohar Lal Khattar with Deputy CM Dushyant Chautala and Governor Satyadev Narayan Arya after the swearing-in ceremony. (Image: Twitter) After hours of speculations and political tussle, ruling BJP (with 40 seats) switched an alliance with ten-month-old Jannayak Janata Party (with 10 seats) and seven independents, taking the tally to 57, much beyond the half-way majority mark of 46 in the assembly. On Sunday, BJP’s Manohar Lal Khattar and JJP’s Dushyant Chautala took oath as Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister respectively at the Haryana Raj Bhawan.   Winning three consecutive elections after assuming power in the state in 2014 and an improved vote-share, the question remains. Is this the victory, BJP was aiming for? Here, I explored few prominent reasons for “a victory that isn’t”    Former Ministers Ram Bilas Sharma, Captain Abhimanyu, and O.P. Dhankar (L to R) at the swearing-in ceremony. Eight out of ten ministers lost their seats in the elections. (Im

Founded in December 2018, Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), an off-shoot of the farmer rights driven Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) is giving sleepless nights to Congress and INLD. On atleast 45-50 seats out of 90 assembly seats, JJP is also giving a close fight to the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). Led by former Hisar MP Dushyant Chautala, JJP fought its first election in January 2019, Jind by-poll. Dushyant's brother Digvijay stood second as an independent, supported by the party since its registration was pending with the Election Commission. JJP's splendid debut performance was evident with many leaders braking away from INLD to join the newly formed party. Parting ways from the party, Dushyant had alleged that his uncle and younger son of party supremo Om Prakash Chautala, Abhay Singh Chautala misbehaved with him on many occasions. Dushyant's father, Ajay Chautala is in jail for JBT scam with OP Chautala. Dushyant grew from youngest MP to one of the senior lea