Chandigarh: The Haryana government once again accepted the request for furlough by Dera Sacha Sauda chief, Ram Rahim Singh. He is serving a life sentence in a rape and murder case. Now he will be out of jail for the next 21 days. This is the seventh time that the man has got parole just before an election. After exactly 2 months, Haryana will go for Assembly Elections to elect MLAs for 90 seats. Earlier Ram Rahim got parole just ahead of 6 elections. The parole period totalled up to 192 days.
The Congress Party has questioned these frequent paroles given to Ram Rahim. Congress spokesperson Surendra Rajput in a sharp attack on the BJP said that each time the party gets stuck in elections, they run to Rahim. Can the BJP not win an election on its own, he questioned. Meanwhile the BJP which is in power in the state has not reacted to the parole.
Election results when Ram Rahim was out on parole
- Municipal elections were held for 5 seats in Haryana Municipal Corporation in June 2018. Just before these elections, Ram Rahim got parole for 30 days. This was his first parole after being sent to jail in August 2017. The BJP won these elections with a massive margin. In fact it was described as a one-sided election. The party won all 5 seats.
- In March 2022, Punjab along with 4 other states was set to go for Assembly Elections. In January 2022, Ram Rahim got parole for 21 days. After coming out of prison the man started to talk about politics in Haryana itself. But this time his influence could not convert into votes for the BJP. The party managed to win just 2 seats which was less than the 3 it won in Punjab Assembly Elections in 2017.
- In 2022 October, Haryana was to hold Panchayat Elections and this time Ram Rahim got 40 days parole. Th then Manohar Lal Khattar government was brutally criticised for this move to give parole to the rape accused. As far as the election results are concerned, the BJP suffered a loss. The party had contested 102 Zila Paroishad seats in 7 districts, out of which it managed to win only 22 seats. The party lost badly in Panchkula and Palwal.
- Assembly by-elections were also held in 2022 in Adampur. The seat is considered a stronghold of the Bhajanlal family. BJP had given a ticket to Bhajanlal’s grandson, Bhavya Vishnoi for this seat. He won the elections by a margin of 15,740 votes, against the Congress candidate Jaiprakash.
- Before the Rajasthan Assembly Elections in 2023, Eam Rahim was once again granted parole. This time he was out for 21 days and the BJP government once again was criticised for its decision. The election results in Rajasthan once again favoured the BJP and the party managed to form a government in Rajasthan. But the party could not make much of a gain in the areas where Ram Rahim was considered to be influential. BJP could win only 2 out of 6 seats in Sriganganagar and only one out of 5 seats in Hanumangarh.
Haryana will be going in for an Assembly Election this year and the BJP has suffered a major setback in this year’s Lok Sabha Elections in the state. The party managed to win just 5 of the 10 seats in the state during the General Elections. In Sirsa the party candidate lost with a huge margin. The Congress meanwhile managed to increase its vote share on all 9 seats. In 2019, the party won just 2 Assembly seats from here.
How influential is Ram Rahim’s Dera Sacha Sauda?
Dera Sacha Sauda is a socio-spiritual organisation which was founded in the year 148 by Mastana Balochistani. It was in the year 1990 that Ram Rahim became its chief and since then he has been heading it. At one point of time, it was believed that Dera Sacha Sauda had 1 crore followers. But now this number has gone down considerably. The headquarters of this organisation is Haryana’s Sirsa.
In his initial years, Ram Rahim was close to Congress leaders. Between 2007 to 2012 he had given several statements in support of the party. In fact party leader Captain Amarinder Singh along with his wife had visited the Dera chief in 2012 in Sirsa. But the Congress lost both the elections during that time.
In 2017, trouble began to mount for Ram Rahim, when the Punjab & Haryana High Court found him guilty in a rape and murder case. There was much hue and cry over the matter in Haryana, but Ram Rahim was arrested due to the court’s strict orders.