Cong announces candidates for mayoral, municipal council polls

Chandigarh: The Congress on Saturday announced its first list of candidates for elections to the posts of mayor and president in Haryana's municipal councils, relying upon old faces and the kin of MLAs.
Three of the eight candidates are women. For the post of municipal council presidents, all three candidates are women. The party has put on hold the names of mayoral candidates for Panipat and Faridabad municipal corporations. The list of candidates for the post of members of municipal corporations is expected to be released by Sunday afternoon.
Like Lok Sabha and assembly elections, even in civic polls, it is former CM Bhupinder Hooda and his team who have called the shots. The entire state election committee is dominated by leaders from the Hooda group.
For the Sonipat bypoll of mayor, Congress has relied upon Kamal Diwan, son of former MLA Devraj Diwan and a loyalist of Hooda. Kamal will be locked in an electoral fight with Rajiv Jain, husband of former minister Kavita Jain and former media adviser to the former Haryana CM.
For the Ambala MC mayoral byelection, Congress has relied upon Amisha Chawla, widow of Dalip Chawla Bittu, who is also a media coordinator during the Hooda-led Congress. She has been fielded against Selja Sachdeva of BJP. Nirmal Singh of Congress is the MLA from Ambala City. The bypoll was necessitated following the election of former mayor Shakti Rani Sharma as MLA of Kalka.
Congress has picked Kirana Devi, wife of former MLA Rajpal Bhukhri, as the candidate for the mayoral poll in Yamunanagar municipal corporation. Bhukhri was in the Selja camp, but later he shifted loyalty to the Hooda camp.
Former deputy mayor of Karnal, Manoj Wadhwa, has been picked by Congress against Renu Bala Gupta of BJP for the mayoral election in Karnal. During the last elections, Wadhwa was a joint consensus candidate of Congress, INLD, and other parties. Wadhwa was recently targeted by the ED as well.
In Rohtak, party has picked Suraj Mal, a loyalist of the Hooda family, especially Lok Sabha MP Deepender Hooda. He has been fielded against Ramavtar Balmiki of BJP. Balmiki is the national vice-president of SC Morcha of BJP.
In Hisar, Congress has picked Krishan Singla for the mayoral post. He is fielded against Praveen Popli, a state-level coordinator of the NaMo app. Popli filed his nomination papers on Saturday in the presence of CM Nayab Saini.
While BJP is yet to name the entire team for Manesar, the newly created municipal corporation, Congress has picked Neeraj Yadav as the mayoral candidate. Seema Pahuja will be the candidate for Gurugram mayoral polls.
In municipal councils, Congress has relied on Rajrani, Jaswinder Kaur, and Sunita Nehra for the election of presidents of municipal councils of Pataudi, Sirsa, and Thanesar. All three posts are reserved for SC women.
AAP too names nominees
After Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has also started announcing the candidates for civic polls. AAP has named Kamlesh Kumar Saini and Amit Khatak as mayoral candidates for Sonipat and Rohtak municipal corporations. Besides, the party has released a list of candidates for the election of members of Faridabad municipal corporation, Narnaund municipal council, and other civic bodies where it fared well in Lok Sabha and assembly elections.