With around three weeks left in Adampur bypolls, all parties are on their toes to win the battle. Adampur seat is seen as a stronghold for former Chief Minister Bhajan Lal as his family has not lost any election since 1968 and in wake of this, winning the election for other party candidates is not a cakewalk. The BJP has fielded his grandson Bhavay Bishnoi from the seat and The contestants fielded by the main opposition party Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are being considered the strongest claimant in this multi-cornered fight. Caste factor is most likely to play a pivotal role in the forthcoming bypolls and keeping in view the same, All parties are putting their best to woo the voters hailing from all communities. The Congress, AAP and INLD have fielded Jat contestants while the BJP has relied on a non-Jat candidate. All political parties are busy in focusing on caste arithmetic.
Adampur has 171473 votes, of whom over 91000 are men. Adampur is a Jat-dominated assembly seat as there are around 55 thousand Jat voters which constitutes about one third of the total vote bank. In continuation to this, There are around 31000 SC voters which is a major chunk. Likewise, the voters hailing from the Bishnoi community also play a pivotal role in elections as it has around 30000 voters. Besides, there are 29000 voters of BC-A category while remaining electorate includes Baniyas, Brahmins, Rajputs and others.
The Congress has placed its bet on veteran Jat leader Jai Parkash, a loyalist to Bhupender Singh Hooda who gave a close fight to Bhajan in 2009 from Adampur and lost the elections with a difference of 6015 votes. Keeping in view the sizable vote share of the Jat community, the Congress has nominated him for the bypolls and the party feels that he is best candidate to upset BJP’s applecart Bhava. But it is a big challenge for him to prevent a big split in the Jat votes and consolidate a bulk of those in his favour as the contestants of the INLD and AAP also hail from the Jat community.
The BJP is banking on Bhavay,a non Jat contender hailing from the Bishnoi community. The Bhajan Lal family has managed to polarise a big chunk of non-Jat voters and succeeded in consolidating the voters hailing from the Bishnoi community so far. In the wake of a multi-cornered fight, Bhavay and Kuldeep are eyeing Jat voters. AAP is also having high hopes from its contestant Satender Singh who hails from the Jat community. It is worth mentioning that he had fought the last two assembly elections unsuccessfully on the ticket of the BJP and the Congress. The INLD also has nominated a Jat leader Darduram who recently bid farewell to the Congress after the party fielded Jai Parkash and following this, he had joined hand with the INLD
Bhavay’s father Kuldeep Bishnoi resignation as the Congress MLA in August necessitated the bypolls for the Adampur seat in Hisar district . He also serves as a non-Jat leader, which fits well into the kind of political alignments the BJP has crafted over the years and deployed successfully in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana among other places.
