Published 15:58 IST, October 24th 2019
Congress embarrassed: Randeep Surjewala loses Haryana's Kaithal to BJP
Randeep Surjewala lost the Kaithal seat to BJP's Leela Ram by a narrow margin in the 2019 Haryana Assembly polls. Surjewala was a two time sitting MLA.
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Indian National Congress (INC) candidate from Kaithal, Randeep Singh Surjewala, has lost his election against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s Leela Ram Gujjar in the Haryana Assembly elections by a narrow margin. Speaking to the media, the INC spokesperson conceded defeat to Ram. Furthermore, he stated that the party would introspect on the result.
Surjewala remarked, "Firstly I would like to thank the candidate from the BJP, Leela Ram Gujjar. I am confident that he will boost Kaithal's progress and growth in the manner that we have in the last 15 years. Today, it's his day. The public has given a mandate and I bow my head and accept the decision of Kaithal's public. I think the party has to sit and analyse the result but today is not the day to do so. I think right now there are a lot of possibilities and I am not wanting to discuss the possibilities. The decisions will be taken by Selja Kumari and Bhupinder Hooda, and if you ask them, they will definitely answer."
The Kaithal seat
Surjewala had contested the seat in the 2009 and the 2014 elections and had won on both occasions. In both elections, he defeated the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD)'s Kailash Bhagat to win the seat. In the 2014 elections, he had won the elections by a margin of 23,675 and had 15.68% of the total vote share.
The Republic-Jan Ki Baat Exit poll had projected him to lose the seat in this Assembly elections. Kaithal witnessed a 77.79% of voter turnout in the polling that took place on Monday, October 21. The BJP, INC, Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) and the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) are among the major political parties contesting Haryana's 90 member assembly. In the 2014 Assembly elections, the BJP came to power riding on the Modi wave and won 47 seats. At the time of writing, no party appears to have sufficient seats to form a government in the state.
13:42 IST, October 24th 2019