The Julana Assembly constituency in Haryana is going to be the watched election battle as the counting for the 2024 Assembly polls in Haryana is underway. With two widely popular personalities — wrestler Vinesh Phogat from Congress and Captain Yogesh Bairagi from BJP — contesting against each other, the results for the Julana Assembly seat is much awaited.

As the early trends come in, Phogat is leading from the Julana Assembly constituency.

Wrestler-turned-politician Vinesh Phogat remained the key player in Julana after she was nominated by Congress soon after she joined the party. Phogat joined the Indian National Congress and entered the world of politics after she retired from wrestling following the Paris Olympics 2024.

Notably, Phogat participated in the wrestlers’ anti-sexual harassment protest against the former chief of the Wrestling Federation of India and ex-MP of BJP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.

In addition to Phogat, 11 other candidates have also contested from the Julana Assembly constituency. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yogesh Bairagi, who earlier served in the Army for nearly nine years and is a former commercial pilot, is being termed to be the key contender against Phogat.

Julana had over 1.85 lakh eligible voters, with 40 percent of them from the Jat community. Voting across all 90 seats in the Haryana Legislative Assembly was conducted in a single phase on October 5.

Iltija Mufti Election Result Live: Iltija Mufti, the daughter of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti, rose to prominence when her mother was detained after the abrogation of Article 370 in J&K. The 37-year-old, who is contesting polls from Bijbehara, pursued a degree in Political Science at a Delhi college. She later went to the UK for a Master’s in International Relations and worked as a Senior Administrative Officer at the Indian High Commission in London and the Australia India Institute. Iltija is in direct contest with National Conference veteran Bashir Veeri who previously lost two elections in a row from the seat.

Mehbooba Mufti had also made her electoral debut from Bijbehara in 1996 and the constituency is known as the turf of the Mufti family.

The Srigufwara-Bijbehara Assembly constituency is one of the 90 seats in Jammu and Kashmir that went to polls in Phase 1 of the three-phase elections on September 18. In the 2014 Assembly results, the seat was won by Abdul Rehman Bhat of the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Democratic Party (JKPDP), who defeated Bashir Ahmad Shah of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (NC) by a margin of 2,868 votes. Srigufwara–Bijbehara is part of the Anantnag–Rajouri Lok Sabha.

As counting of votes begins for the Haryana Assembly elections 2024, leads and trends will start coming in shortly. Among the prominent candidates in the state is sitting MLA Dushyant Singh Chautala who is contesting from the Uchana Kalan seat.

A Jat-dominated constituency, Uchana Kalan was major battleground for the October 5 Haryana Assembly elections and witnessed the clash of two prominent political families — former deputy prime minister Devi Lal’s great-grandson Dushyant Singh Chautala and former Union minister Birender Singh’s son Brijendra Singh.

Dushyant Singh Chautala, former Haryana deputy chief minister and Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) leader, is the sitting MLA from the constituency and is seeking a re-election. He is the grandson of former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala.

In the Haryana polls 2024, Chautala was up against bureaucrat-turned-politician and Congress candidate Brijendra Singh. Singh and his father Birender Singh quit the BJP earlier this year and joined the Congress. Birender Singh, the grandson of farmer leader Sir Chhotu Ram, had joined the BJP ahead of the Haryana polls in 2014, snapping his over four-decade-old ties with the Congress.

The ruling BJP fielded Devender Chatar Bhuj Attri as its candidate for the Uchana Kalan seat.

Uchana Kalan Assembly Constituency

The Uchana Kalan assembly constituency falls in the Jind district, considered Haryana’s political heartland. Before Dushyant Chautala won the Uchana Kalan constituency, it was considered to be a bastion of the Birender Singh family. The former Union minister himself was a five-time MLA from the constituency.

Dushyant Chautala won the seat in the 2019 Haryana elections, defeating Brijendra’s mother Prem Lata Singh by over 47,000 votes. Prem Lata had defeated Chautala in 2014.

Dushyant Singh Chautala: King or Kingmaker?

The JJP leader has predicted a hung Assembly in Haryana this time, but exuded confidence that the JJP alliance will win enough seats to emerge as a key player after the results. The JJP had won 10 of the 90 Assembly seats in the 2019 Haryana assembly polls, the BJP 40 and the Congress 31.

Asked whether the JJP will support any other outfit in case of a hung Assembly, Chautala quipped, “Why to go behind somebody. Why can’t somebody come behind us. Anybody can form a good alliance in which we lead… rest of the things we can comment when results are out,” he said.

In the 2019 Haryana Assembly polls, the JJP had won 10 of the 90 ssembly seats, the BJP 40 and the Congress 31. Emerging as a ‘kingmaker’, it entered into a post-poll tie-up with BJP, which had fallen short of majority.