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Delhi

Ashish Dua emerges frontrunner for Cong's Gurugram candidate

Gurugram: Ashish Dua presently serving as a national coordinator of communications in the All Indian Congress Committee (AICC) is emerging as a frontrunner from Gurugram assembly seat, sources indicate. Dua is believed to be close to not only the interim Congress President Sonia Gandhi but also the former Congress President Rahul Gandhi. In 2018, he was appointed as an AICC secretary for Maharashtra in order to strengthen the party in the state.

While the insiders in the party admit the Dua has a strong chance of becoming the nominee, other leaders that are being considered include Sukhbeer Kataria who won the Gururgam seat in 2009 and Seema Pahuja who is presently the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) councillor from ward 15. Since Dua belongs from Punjabi community, sources as also indicate that the BJP may also field a Punjabi candidate from Gurugram this time.

The winning of Gurugrm seat holds a lot of significance for the Grand old party of India. The importance of Gururgam can be gauged from the fact tha not only the South Haryana constituency is not only the richest of all the 90 assembly constituencies but a traditional stronghold for Congress. There have been twelve occasions in the past where asembly elections have been held in Gurugram in which Congress has won six times. the grand old party of India was able to win the Gurugon seat in the years 1968, 1972,1982,1991, 1996 and 2005. Gopi Chand Gehlot who then represented the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) won the seat in 1999.

Dharambir Gaba and Rao Mahabeer Singh are the two most successful leaders from Congress. While Gaba has won the Gurugram seat four times Rao Mahabeer has won the seat two times. For long, the BJP did not have a stronghold in Haryana but Gururgam was one seat that had always given high vote percentage to the saffron party. Seven years after it was formed Sitaram Singla won the Gurugram seat in 1987.

It was only 27 years after that BJP then was able to win the Gururgam seat when Umesh Aggarwal became the MLA in 2014 after winning with a huge margin of 1.6 lakh votes. Aggarwal had open differences with Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar in the past. Even though Gurugram has traditionally favoured only national parties there have been also occasions when candidates from the regional parties have also won the prominent South Haryana seat.

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