Savitri Jindal, India's richest woman, set to contest Haryana polls as independent candidate

Congress leader Randeep Surjewala's son Aditya Surjewala, Bharatiya Janata Party's Shruti Choudhry, the granddaughter of former chief minister Bansi Lal, and Kurukshetra Member of Parliament Naveen Jindal's mother Savitri Jindal were among several leaders who filed their nominations on Sep 12 for the Haryana Assembly polls.

Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) leader Abhay Chautala filed his papers from Ellenabad while BJP nominee and minister Mahipal Dhanda and former Haryana deputy chief minister Chander Mohan, a Congress candidate, filed their nominations from Panipat Rural and Panchkula seats, respectively.

Polling for the 90 assembly seats in Haryana will be held on October 5 and votes will be counted on October 8. Sep 12 was the last day for filing nominations.

The scrutiny of the nomination papers will be done on September 13 and nominations can be withdrawn till September 16.

Aditya Surjewala filed his papers from the Kaithal assembly seat. He was accompanied by his father and the Congress' Rajya Sabha MP Randeep Surjewala.

Shruti Choudhry filed her papers from the Tosham seat in the presence of her mother and Rajya Sabha MP Kiran Choudhry and the BJP's Haryana in-charge Biplab Kumar Deb.

The BJP's Kurukshetra MP Naveen Jindal's mother Savitri Jindal, who was an aspirant for a poll ticket from the party for the Haryana Assembly elections, filed her nomination from the Hisar seat as an Independent.

She had aspired for a BJP ticket to contest the polls from Hisar but the party renominated sitting MLA and state minister Kamal Gupta from the seat.

Forbes India has listed Savitri, the wife of noted industrialist late OP Jindal, as the richest woman in the country this year having a net worth of USD 29.1 billion.

Savitri was elected as an MLA from the Hisar seat twice. She represented Hisar in the Haryana Assembly for the first time in 2005 as a Congress MLA and was reelected from the seat in 2009. She was made a minister in the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government in 2013.

She quit the Congress in March this year when her son Naveen Jindal also left the party and later joined the BJP.

After filing her nomination, she said, "I have pledged to serve Hisar for its development and transformation. The people of Hisar are my family and Om Prakash Jindal had established my relationship with this family."

"The Jindal family has always served Hisar. I am fully dedicated to living up to the expectations of the people and maintaining their trust," Savitri Jindal said.

Congress nominee Ashok Arora, accompanied by senior party leader and former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, filed his papers from the Thanesar seat in Kurukshetra district.

Party nominee Nirmal Singh filed his papers from Ambala City, Akram Khan from Jagadhri, Bharat Singh Beniwal from Ellenabad, Ram Niwas Rara from Hisar, Anita Yadav from Ateli and Bhagwan Dass from Nilokheri.

The scrutiny of the nomination papers will be conducted on September 13 and nominations can be withdrawn till September 16.

The ruling BJP is eyeing a hat-trick in the assembly polls but faces a stiff challenge from a resurgent Congress, which is looking to cash in on the anti-incumbency factor.

(PTI)