Scions pep up campaigns of top guns in Gurgaon

Gurgaon: Children of two prominent candidates for the Gurgaon seat — one each from BJP (Rao Inderjit Singh) and Congress (Captain Ajay Yadav) — are leading the campaigns for their respective fathers. Inderjit’s daughter Aarti is holding corner meetings and rallies for her father, while Captain Yadav’s son Chiranjiv is conducting road shows and meetings. Incidentally, Chiranjiv is married to RJD chief and former Bihar CM Lalu Prasad Yadav’s daughter, Anushka, who is seeking ‘Purvanchali’ votes for her father-in-law.
The election campaign has provided appropriate opportunity for the scions of political families to sharpen their political skills, as both of them are eyeing tickets for the assembly election in Haryana slated to be held five months from now. Both are expecting to take over the political mantle from their fathers by making electoral debuts in the state elections, if their fathers’ manage to fetch their tickets from their respective parties.
This year, Inderjit’s elder daughter Arti, who has campaigned for her father in previous elections, has moved from backstage to lead the campaign and hold meeting and rallies in her father’s support. She has already held a series of meetings in Pataudi, Rewari, Bawal, Farrukhnagar and Badshapur. Over the past two days, she is holding meetings in urban Gurgaon, with residents of different sectors.
She starts her meetings by listing the work done by her father for Gurgaon, and moves to stressing on Inderjit’s clean image. “His biggest achievement is 42 years of spotless political life. He is doing real social work while being a politician, while Opposition parties are indulging in politics. But people are aware of everything,” she says.
To drive her point home, she lists work done by Inderjit in the last five years. “Till a few years ago, Gurgaon was infamous for traffic jams. My father took personal initiative and ensured the construction of several flyovers and underpasses,” she says, adding that in 2014, his father had taken Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari on a road trip along Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway and KMP Expressway, which cleared the way for a Rs 1,300 crore NHAI project to build several flyovers and underpasses in Gurgaon.
She says GMDA was a result of his hard work. “GMDA only took shape after he raised the demand for utilisation of tax collected from Gurgaon on Gurgaon’s development,” she says, adding Gurgaon generates around 60% of the state’s revenue, but has thus far been denied its share of investment for development. She also says her father has ensured Gurgaon gets its due.
She changes her script as per audience and constituency. In Pataudi and Rewari, she talks about the KMP Expressway, the road from Sohna to Rajiv Chowk and the merit-based recruitment of youth in government jobs. While addressing the urban population in Badshapur and Gurgaon, she talks of infrastructure projects in the city to reduce traffic jams, and the formation of GMDA. Like a seasoned politician, she sticks to seeking votes on projects done under her father’s watch. She is equally involved in back-end election management.
In Congress, Chiranjiv Rao, son of party candidate Capt Ajay Yadav, is holding fort for his father. The national secretary of Youth Congress is holding meetings and road shows in his father’s support.
Like his father, he attacks Inderjit for his disconnect and absence from the constituency, but he also attacks the Modi-led government at the Centre for poor implementation of GST and demonetisation. “Poor implementation of GST and demonetisation has badly affected small traders and businessman. It has led to job loss for large number of people,” said Chiranjiv, adding the PM is busy in foreign trips and believes in just his own ‘Mann Ki Baat’, so, at these elections, voters will speak their ‘Mann Ki Baat’ and vote out this government.
Chiranjiv is married to Anushka, daughter of RJD chief Lalu Yadav. Like her husband, Anushka is also seeking votes for her father-in-law. She is holding meetings for women and people from UP and Bihar seeking their votes. Anushka is trying to impress these voters with her Bihar roots.