Dera chief in prison, battle for Sirsa now different ball game

HISAR: Of the 13 elections and one bypoll held in Sirsa Lok Sabha constituency since 1967, voters chose the Congress’s father-daughter duo of Chaudhary Dalbir Singh and Kumari Selja on six occasions, party’s Atma Singh Gill and Ashok Tanwar once each, and leaders of the INLD, Lok Dal and Janata Party the remaining six times.

To date, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has not come to power in the constituency that has been reserved for members of the scheduled caste (SC) community since its formation in 1967. Dera Sacha Sauda, which is headquartered in Sirsa city, also holds sway over voters. However, its chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was convicted of rape in September 2017 and murder in January this year, so it is yet to be seen if the sect would still have the same influence as before.


Sirsa covers the entire Sirsa and Fatehabad districts and parts of Jind district of the state. Dalbir Singh won it four times and Selja twice. She also lost the election twice from the seat. She faced her first defeat in the 1988 byelection to Hetram, candidate of Janata Dal, and the second time in 1998 general elections, when she lost to Sushil Kumar Indora of the Indian National Lok Dal.

When it comes to political parties, the Congress has won the highest number of times from the seat — eight. INLD and JD (S) candidates have been MPs twice, while candidates of Bhartiya Lok Dal and Haryana Lok Dal (National) have been elected to Parliament once each.

Sirsa, which borders Punjab in the north and Rajasthan in the west, has been troubled by the influx of drugs in recent past. Between January and October 2018, drugs worth Rs 22 crore were seized in Sirsa district, according to police data.

For farmers, who mostly grow cotton, the lack of an agro-based industry is the biggest stumbling block. There is no textile industry in the district to process their produce. In line with this, Union textiles minister Smriti Irani, at a rally in Panipat in 2017, had announced that a textile industry hub would be developed in the constituency, but nothing has been done on that front to date. Though Sirsa is home to Chaudhary Devi Lal University, there is a dearth of quality institutions of high education.

BJP, which is in power in the state, has contested four elections on a party symbol from the seat, but it has not won from here even once.

On two occasions, candidates of the saffron party lost their security deposit. In its first election from the seat, BJP made former Union minister Jaswant Singh its candidate in 1984, but he secured only 1.67% of votes.

Hansraj has been the best-performing candidate for the BJP in Sirsa. He secured 23.8% votes in 1996 and 25.24% votes in 1998. Mahavir Prasad, the candidate BJP fielded in 2004, also lost his security deposit and could get only 13.7% votes.