Bharatiya Janata Party’s Rajiv Jain, the outgoing mayor of Sonipat Municipal Corporation and the party’s nominee for the May 10 mayoral poll, made an unannounced visit to Nirankari Bhawan on Railway Road on Sunday.

Skipping the usual cavalcade and crowd of supporters, Mr. Jain attended a ‘satsang (religious gathering)’ before kicking off a packed day of campaigning, with around 30 ‘nukkad sabhas (public meetings)’ planned across the municipal area till midnight.

A veteran of four decades in politics, Mr. Jain is contesting his fourth election. The husband of former Haryana Urban Local Bodies Minister Kavita Jain touched the feet of the saint before sitting with devotees on the carpet. After listening to the discourse for a few minutes, he greeted men, women and children in attendance, shook hands with the staff, and left in his car.

Relying on work

Locked in a prestige battle with Congress’s Kamal Dewan, Mr. Jain said he was relying on his public image and the work done during his nine-month stint as mayor after winning the bypoll in March last year. “I focused on laying drinking water and sewage lines and fixing the roads. A sanitation drive was held every weekend for 40 weeks. We also installed street lights in several parts of the city,” he said.

Mr. Jain said 175 development projects were inaugurated during his tenure, with work orders for 40 more in the pipeline. Congress’s Nikhil Madan, now a BJP MLA from Sonipat, had won the mayoral poll to the Sonipat Municipal Corporation in 2020. However, he joined the BJP before the 2024 Assembly poll, necessitating the by-poll to the municipal corporation, the third richest in Haryana with an annual budget of ₹625 crore and over three lakh electorate.

Having lost the by-poll to Mr. Jain with a margin of 34,749 votes last year, Mr. Dewan, renominated by his party for the election, said the circumstances were “very different” last year. “The by-poll was held soon after Congress’ defeat in the Assembly polls. Also, it was only a mayor’s election and not the entire municipal corporation and, therefore, turnout was abysmally low around 27%,” said Mr. Dewan, son of late MLA Dev Raj Dewan.

Exuding confidence

Appointed as Sonipat district president of Congress in August last year, Mr. Dewan said he stayed among the people since the last mayoral bypoll. He rejected claims by rivals that he lacked public support and said he was confident of a “resounding victory”.

“Corruption in the municipal corporation is the major issue,” Mr. Dewan said. He said the ‘safai karamcharis (sanitation workers)’ who had not been paid salaries for six months, and the fire brigade employees had pledged support to him.

With the Hooda family seen as influential in the Sonipat-Rohtak-Jhajjar belt, Congress’s Rohtak MP Deepender Hooda has completed a round of canvassing in the municipal corporation area, which encompasses four Assembly constituencies, including Gannaur, Rai and Kharkhoda. He is scheduled to address several more meetings before the polling.

The BJP has brought in north-east Delhi MP Manoj Tiwari to woo Purvanchali voters, who number around 15,000. Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini held meetings with voters across all 22 wards on Monday, and New Delhi MP Bansuri Swaraj is also expected to campaign for the party.

Punjabi factor

Mr. Jain played down the Hoodas’ influence, pointing to the 2024 Assembly results. “Four of the six Assembly seats were won by the BJP and only one by the Congress. At least Sonipat is no more a Hooda bastion,” said Mr. Jain, a former media adviser to then Chief Minister Manohar Lal from 2014-19.

Punjabis make up around 20% of the electorate in the municipal corporation area and hold the key to the election outcome, said realtor Praveen Arora.

“Though sewage and drinking water pipelines have been laid during the BJP rule, the prolonged delay in completing the work caused inconvenience to locals and made them angry,” Mr. Arora said. “Rampant corruption” in getting routine work done has also gone against the regime, he said, but the Congress nominee lacked the social connect and experience of the BJP candidate. “All said and done, the election would be decided the way the Punjabis vote,” Mr. Arora said.