Carved out as a separate constituency only in 2009, the Ladwa Assembly seat in Haryana has all eyes on it ahead of the Assembly polls in the state because the BJP has fielded Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini from there and he is seen to be facing a tough contest from sitting MLA and Congress leader Mewa Singh.
With the BJP eyeing a third consecutive victory in the Hindi heartland state and declaring Mr Saini, who took over as chief minister from Manohar Lal Khattar in March, as its chief ministerial face, NDTV visited the Ladwa constituency and spoke to people there, as well as both candidates, to get a feel of which party has the edge there.
A voter in the constituency, Sanjiv Sahni, said the main issues are inflation, unemployment and a bypass that was promised.
"The BJP has had a government here for 10 years. Before coming to power, they made many promises, including that a bypass would be built and 2 crore people would get employment. But it didn't happen," he said.
Another voter said Mr Saini was an MP from the Kurukshetra Lok Sabha constituency, of which the Ladwa segment is a part, but his presence had not been felt.
Disagreeing with the others, a voter said it is important to elect a strong leader and Mr Saini could be that person, while another emphasised the need of having someone from the ruling party as the MLA to ensure that work gets done.
'Will Form Government Again'
Speaking to NDTV, Mr Saini said, "I am getting a lot of love and support from the people of Ladwa. I am convinced that the BJP will get a big mandate and will form the government for the third time. We are giving cylinders at Rs 500 and have bought every last grain from farmers at the minimum support price (MSP)."
His opponent from Ladwa, Mewa Singh, claimed that people are angry at the BJP and the Congress will form a government in Haryana.
"I won from Ladwa last time, faced a challenge and won with a margin of over 12,500 votes. In these five years, I have worked hard for the constituency and have got support from many communities, so I don't see the upcoming polls as a challenge... The bypass is a major issue here, but that hasn't been built. People will ask these questions of Mr Saini. People in the state want Bhupinder Singh Hooda to be the chief minister," he said.
Numbers Game
Political experts said Mr Saini, who had won a bypoll from Mr Khattar's former seat of Karnal by defeating Congress' Tarlochan Singh with a margin of over 41,000 votes in June, has been fielded from the Ladwa constituency because it has a high population of voters from the Other Backward Communities (OBCs), particularly the Saini community.
The fact that the BJP's Naveen Jindal won from the Kurukshetra Lok Sabha constituency, of which the Ladwa segment is a part, by a margin of over 29,000 votes is also likely to have played a part in the decision.
OBC's make up 40.09% of the population in the constituency with the Saini community alone accounting for 18.92%. Among non-OBC communities, Jats are a sizeable part of the population, making up 15.84%. The constituency has 1.95 lakh voters.
The constituency was carved out from the Thanesar Assembly segment in 2009 and no party has won it twice.
Haryana will vote on October 5 and counting will be held on October 8.
