Chandigarh, Oct 22 (Inditop.com) At least five Congress ministers in the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government lost their assembly seats in the Oct 13 Haryana polls results of which were declared Thursday.
The ministry, besides the chief minister had only 10 ministers, including seven of cabinet rank.
The biggest upset was that of Finance Minister Birender Singh who lost to former chief minister and Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) president Om Prakash Chautala by just 621 votes from the Uchana Kalan constituency.
This was the most high-profile contest among all 90 assembly seats.
Birender Singh is known for his aspiration to become Haryana chief minister but that seems to have been dashed for the time being.
Transport Minister Mange Ram Gupta lost from the Jind assembly seat to the Indian National Lok Dal’s (INLD) Hari Chand Middha by over 7,800 votes.
Education Minister A.C. Chaudhary lost the Faridabad NIT (new industrial township) seat, adjoining the national capital New Delhi, to independent candidate Shiv Charan Tejpal by 7,875 votes.
Industries Minister Lachhman Dass Arora lost from the Sirsa assembly seat. He finished a poor third in the contest there despite Congress president Sonia Gandhi coming to campaign for him.
Independent Gopal Kanda won from the Sirsa seat.
Minister of State for Cooperation Meena Mandal lost the Nilokheri (reserved) seat to Mamu Ram of the INLD by 16,723 votes.
Hooda himself returned with the highest margin in this election – winning by 72,100 votes from the Garhi Sampla-Kiloi seat in Rohtak district.
The second and third highest margin was that of minister for forests, environment, tourism and sports Kiran Chaudhary, who won by over 46,000 votes from the Tosham seat in Bhiwani district and former union minister Venod Sharma who won the Ambala City seat by over 35,500 votes.
