New Delhi: The Om Prakash Chautala-led Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) had 81 contenders in the 90-seat Haryana Assembly.
Party's most-backed leader Abhay Singh Chautala could manage to grab one seat from Ellenabad constituency. The polling for the 90-member assembly took place on October 21 and the counting took place on October 24.
The INLD was founded by Choudhary Devi Lal in 1996. The party ruled Haryana for four years when it claimed 47 out of the 90 seats and Om Prakash Chautala was elected as the Chief Minister of the state in 2000.
While the party had 19 seats in the 2014 Assembly elections, they could only manage one seat in 2019. Chautala, who was hoping to get rel-elected from the Ellenabad constituency, saved his party from an embarrassing defeat.
In the 2014 election, the Bharatiya Janta Party won 47 seats and the Congress could manage only 15 seats The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) claimed 19 seats and the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Shiromani Akali Dal had one seat each and five seats were won by independent candidates. Counting centres were set in each of the 90 constituencies and an additional centre in Gurgaon's Badshahpur was set up with larger number of polling booths.
Among the political heavyweights contesting are incumbent Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, former Congress CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda, JJP leader Dushyant Chautala and INLD's Abhay Singh Chautala. BJP ministers Ram Bilas Sharma, Anil Vij, Capt Abhimanyu, O P Dhankar and Kavita Jain are also in the fray.
From Congress, Randeep Singh Surjewala, Kiran Choudhary, Ranbir Mahendra and Kuldeep Bishnoi are some leaders who are eyeing the seats. This time the BJP has fielded some of the non-political figures including wrestlers Babita Phogat and Yogeshwar Dutt, former India Hockey player Sandeep Singh and TikTok sensation Sonali Phogat
