BJP’s Yogeshwar Dutt has lost the bypoll to Baroda’s seat in Haryana’s Sonipat
Chandigarh / New Delhi:
Yogeshwar Dutt of the BJP lost the grant for the Baroda Assembly seat in the Sonipat district of Haryana. Mr. Dutt, an Olympic wrestler who joined the party in September last year, was defeated by Indu Raj Narwal from Congress; the Electoral Commission has yet to reveal the margin of victory.
“I must be missing something for which I could not meet the expectations of the people. I don’t know the exact reason, but this is the mandate of the people. I worked hard, I will work hard. I have congratulated the winning candidate,” said Dutt. reporters after his loss.
This is the second time in a row that Yogeshwar Dutt has failed to win this seat; he was selected by the party in full elections last year, but lost to three-time winner of Congress, Krishan Hooda.
The bypoll, seen as a direct contest between the ruling BJP and Congress, was necessary after Hooda died after a prolonged illness in April. The BJP has never won this seat before.
Haryana BJP Chairman Om Prakash Dhankar also posted on his Facebook page, comparing Dutt’s defeat to the “Abhimanyu massacre”.
“Baroda was already with Congress. We could not turn the opportunity into a challenge. (We accepted) the mandate (of the people) but the defeat of Yogeshwar Dutt is like the Abhimanyu massacre,” he posted.
The bypoll was also a matter of prestige for former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, as this Jat-dominated constituency sits alongside his own Garhi-Sampla Kiloi headquarters and is seen as his stronghold.
Baroda was a reserved seat until 2005 and a pocket district of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) before Congress won it for three consecutive terms beginning in 2009.
Although the BJP failed to win this seat in 2019, it won a total of 40 out of 90 seats in the assembly in October last year and then formed the government with the support of Dushyant Chautala and the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), which won 10 seats.
Yogeshwar Dutt, who won bronze at the 2012 London Olympics, joined the BJP a month before the October elections. Dutt said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was his “source of inspiration.”
“The work that you (the prime minister) have done has given a new direction to politics. By joining the BJP, I have the opportunity to serve the country,” he tweeted at the time.
He had been linked to the BJP even before, in March 2019 before the Lok Sabha elections. According to the PTI news agency, his name was recommended by the party’s state unit.
With input from PTI
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