For the Ahir votes, Rao Inderjit concentrates on Kosli and Mahendragarh

Rao Inderjit Singh, the sitting MP from Gurgaon and a BJP contender, has been focusing on the Kosli Assembly segment under the Rohtak and Bhiwani-Mahendragarh constituencies for the last two days, despite his seat being declared safe. The party’s top leadership instructed Rao to combine Ahir’s votes in support of Dharambir Singh and Dr. Arvind Sharma, two of the contenders.

Rao has been campaigning in these two Assembly seats for the last two days as part of his mission. He attended the rallies at Mahendragarh for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Kosli for Union Minister of Road Transport Nitin Gadkari. He spoke with Ahir leaders after the campaign to make sure the community supported the BJP. The BJP had designated Inderjit as their star candidate and demanded that he focus specifically on the seats held by Ahir and Yadav voters. Rao ran two separate campaigns throughout the early stages of the campaign. Following his declaration as the Congress candidate from Gurgaon, Raj Babbar has been focusing on his home seat.

Rao and his daughter, Aarti Rao, have been filling in since there were no BJP celebrities visiting Gurgaon. Notably, this was the most intense election campaign to date for senior politician Rao Inderjit Singh, 74, who has served as an MP five times.

Rao was battling not just to win, but to win by the largest margin possible, taking into account anti-incumbency sentiment, party infighting, and the impending Assembly elections. According to BJP sources, the party’s research had projected Rao’s win, but his absence from Mahendragarh and Kosli had highlighted some concerning voting tendencies. Damage control had called for Rao. Rao visited Kosli on May 22 as part of a plan, sharing the stage with Union Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, who gave him credit for the Ahirwal belt’s progress. In a similar vein, he galvanised Mahendragarh’s Ahir voters in the last hours of the campaign to secure victory for the BJP candidate. “We see Gurgaon as a safe seat, but we also need to hold onto the votes of Ahir and Yadav in Kosli and Mahendragarh. There, Rao is well-liked, and we want the people to hear no more of him. Thus, we are enlisting his help in organizing people in that area, “a top BJP campaign strategist said.

Rao Inderjit said when contacted: “I won’t comment on any strategy or plan. We have been going door-to-door as the party has instructed. I have worked for the whole state of South Haryana, not just Gurgaon. I’ve had a long-standing attachment to the people. I am just discussing progress everywhere.

Kosli, which is located in Rao’s home district of Rewari, is an important Assembly seat for the BJP since it was the constituency where Dr. Arvind Kumar Sharma defeated Congressman Deepender Hooda in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. In a similar vein, Ahirs hold four of the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh constituency’s Assembly seats, and Congress candidate Rao Daan Singh has been gaining traction with them.