Gurugram: Jagmohan Anand of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has defeated Sumita Virk of the Congress by 33,652 votes in Haryana’s Karnal, a constituency represented by two chief ministers from the BJP in the past decade.
Previously, Manohar Lal Khattar held the seat from 2014 till March 2024. He was succeeded by incumbent CM Nayab Saini, who held the seat from May 2024 till the dissolution of the Haryana assembly last month.
When Khattar was elected from Karnal for the first time in 2014, he ended the BJP’s 18 years of drought in this seat, as the last time the party had won from here was in 1996 when Shashipal Mehta secured victory.
The only other occasion when a BJP candidate won from Karnal was in 1987 when Lachhman Dass was elected as a Lok Dal-BJP alliance candidate.
The Congress has also won this seat on five occasions: 1957, 1982, 1991, 2005, and 2009.
Following Khattar’s elevation as CM after winning this seat in 2014, Karnal has been referred to as “CM City”.
Initially, Saini had announced that he would contest the assembly elections from Karnal. However, when the party announced its tickets, he was fielded from Ladwa in Kurukshetra.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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