The BJP has named former prison official Sunil Sangwan - who granted Dera Sacha Sauda chief and rape convict Ram Rahim parole six times - on its list of candidates for next month's Haryana Assembly election. Sangwan will contest the Dadri seat ex BJP leader Somveer Sangwan won as an independent in 2019; that was after the party favoured wrestler Babita Phogat over him.
Somveer Sangwan was one of three independent MLAs who supported the Congress during the churn that followed the BJP's Manohar Lal Khattar standing down as Chief Minister before the Lok Sabha election. He is likely to join the Congress on condition he gets the Dadri ticket.
Sunil Sangwan - the recently resigned jail officer who paroled Ram Rahim six times - is on the party's first list of 67 candidates, NDTV was informed on Thursday afternoon.
Ram Rahim was given a 21-day furlough last month; that was his 10th in the last four years.
The timing has not come as a surprise to political observers and critics of the ruling BJP. Rahim's temporary releases have mostly come days before state or local body elections.
READ | Rape Convict Ram Rahim And His Pre-Poll Releases From Jail
The Dera chief - known to have a large number of followers in Haryana, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh - got a 50-day parole in January, weeks before the general election.
He was also released for three weeks in November, days before the Rajasthan election.
In 2022, he got out of jail thrice - for 21 days in February during the Punjab polls, for a month in June when Haryana civic body elections were being held, and then in October for 40 days during Haryana by-polls.
READ | No More Parole For Rape Convict Ram Rahim Without Court Nod
Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh is supposed to be serving a 20-year sentence for raping two of his disciples and is lodged in the Sunaria jail in Haryana's Rohtak district.
In next month's Haryana election the ruling BJP will look to score a hat-trick of Assembly poll wins in the Hindi heartland state. But the result isn't a certainty, given the strong showing of the opposition in the Lok Sabha election in the state earlier this year.
READ | Vinesh Phogat, Bajrang Punia Join Congress, To Contest Haryana Polls
The Congress won five of Haryana's 10 Lok Sabha seats, benefitting from a tie-up with the Aam Aadmi Party as part of the INDIA bloc mandate. The two opposition parties are working on a deal for the state poll too, after Congress MP Rahul Gandhi called for cooperation to beat the BJP.
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