Raj Babbar (L) and Rao Inderjit Singh
Union Minister Rao Inderjit Singh, who has been representing the Gurgaon Lok Sabha seat since 2009, has challengers in Congress candidate Raj Babbar and Rahul Yadav of the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), a singer-rapper popularly known by his village name ‘Fazilpuria’ .
In 1957, freedom fighter and independent Indian Education Minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad represented the seat. The seat was abolished from 1977 to 2008 and subsumed into the Mahendragarh Lok Sabha seat.
Rao Inderjit Singh, a descendant of Rao Tula Ram, who fought in the 1857 War of Independence, was the Congress MP from Gurgaon in 2009 and contested as a BJP MP in 2014 and 2019. He was the Congress MP from Mahendragarh seat. winning in 1999 and 2004). Singh is the son of former Haryana Chief Minister Rao Birender Singh, who was also a multiple-term MP.
Though Babbar was a Lok Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh in the past, he suffered defeats in his recent election forays from Ghaziabad and Fatehpur Sikri in 2014 and 2019 respectively. In Gurgaon, the BJP has called Babbar an ‘outsider’. However, the constituency, comprising the urban areas, IT and manufacturing sectors, and Nuh’s rural belt, is a mix of cosmopolitan and traditional. The entry of the JJP, which withdrew support from the BJP government in Haryana ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, has made the elections interesting, but few expect Rao Inderjit Singh to lose.
Gurgaon will vote along with nine other Haryana Lok Sabha constituencies on Saturday.
First print: May 25, 2024 | 12:19 pm IST