Singh himself had fought the 2014 elections on a BJP ticket, but was with the Congress during the 2009 elections. (File)Even as BJP workers celebrated Rao Inderjit Singh’s victory from Gurgaon for the third consecutive time Thursday, a closer look at the figures from the nine assembly constituencies under the Gurgaon parliamentary seat revealed that the sitting MP continued to get significantly fewer votes than his closest competitor in Nuh, Ferozepur Jhirka and Punahana constituencies.
While the Congress’s Captain Ajay Singh Yadav polled 82,116 votes as compared to Singh’s 34,258 votes in Nuh, in Punahana he polled 81,125 votes against Singh’s 22,045. The margin was the widest in Ferozepur Jhirka, where Yadav obtained 1,08,324 votes while Singh secured only 26,466. The three Assembly constituencies are dominated by the minority community.
In 2014 as well as 2009, when Gurgaon had first become a separate parliamentary constituency, Singh had similarly polled fewer votes in these three constituencies than his then opponent, Zakir Hussain, who fought the elections on an Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) ticket in 2014 and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ticket in 2009. Singh himself had fought the 2014 elections on a BJP ticket, but was with the Congress during the 2009 elections.
In 2009, Singh lost by a margin of 18,957 votes in Nuh, 22,162 in Ferozepur Jhirka and 18,637 in Punahana. In 2014, when he became a member of the BJP, these margins increased to 48,054 in Nuh, 74,364 in Ferozepur Jhirka and 68,420 in Punahana.
Commenting on the trend, BJP Haryana spokesperson Raman Malik said, “We will start working on them within a month. Our target this time is to secure 70 out of the 90 seats in the Vidhan Sabha.”
