Chandigarh: Soon after the Election Commission (EC) announced that polling will be held in the state on October 15, reports stated on Friday that cricketer Yuvraj Singh will campaign for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the upcoming Assembly elections in Haryana.
Earlier in the day, Yuvraj Singh, met BJP President Amit Shah at the party headquarters in the national capital today.
With the star campaigner Yuvraj Singh, BJP seemed to have captured a very reliable face in the state to fight against Congress, which is the ruling party in the poll-bound state.
Leading political parties in Haryana today said, after EC's announcement of the poll dates, that they were all set for next month's Assembly elections.
All 90 Assembly seats will go to polls in a single phase on October 15, while votes will be counted on October 19. There are over 1.62 crore eligible voters including over 30.4 lakh new voters enrolled in the state.
Meanwhile, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said that the Congress would form the government in the state for a third term.
"Looking at the response from people in recent days, I can tell you that the Congress will return to power for a third term," said Hooda, who became chief minister in March 2005 in his first term.
The ruling Congress is facing a stiff challenge from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the main opposition Indian National Lok Dal (INLD).
The BJP, which won seven out of the 10 Lok Sabha seats in the recent parliamentary polls, is upbeat about forming a government on its own in Haryana for the first time.
"We are ready for the assembly elections. The BJP will form the next government in the state," said state BJP president Ram Bilas Sharma.
INLD leader Abhay Chautala also asserted his party was ready to oust the land-scam tainted Hooda government.
"The INLD is going to form the next government and oust the Hooda government which has been the most corrupt with a number of land scams," he said.
Most seats are likely to see multi-cornered contests with the Congress, BJP, INLD, Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) being in the fray along with newly formed Jan Chetna Party and Haryana Lokhit Party (HLP).
In recent days, a number of leaders have left the Congress and the INLD to join the BJP.
In the October 2009 Assembly polls, there were a total of 1,222 candidates in the fray for the 90 seats.
