Disgruntled by their respective parties, several prominent leaders in Haryana have chosen to contest the upcoming assembly elections as independent candidates or switch sides in favour of other parties in some cases.

Polling in the agrarian state is slated for October 5 while the results will be declared on October 8.

The prominent names include Ranjit Chautala, the incumbent power minister and former MLA from Rania constituency in the Sirsa district. He announced to contest the elections as an independent candidate after being denied a ticket by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Son of the illustrious leader of the state, Chaudhary Devi Lal, Chautala successfully contested the 2019 elections as an independent after being ignored by Congress. He joined the BJP only this year and unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha elections from the Hisar constituency.

Savitri Jindal is another name. The mother of sitting BJP MP from Kurukshetra Naveen Jindal was eyeing a BJP ticket from Hisar. But when the party retained incumbent MLA Kamal Gupta, she had no option but to contest the elections as an Independent.

Gurugram MLA Naveen Goyal has also announced to contest the elections as an Independent after being denied a BJP ticket while Satish Khela, who too was denied a ticket by BJP, opted to contest from Rewari as an Independent.

Aditya Chautala, grandson of Chaudhary Devi Lal, joined the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) on Sunday after being denied a BJP ticket from the Dabbwali constituency of the Sirsa district. He joined the saffron party in 2014 and in 2019; he was appointed the chairman of the State Cooperative Agriculture and Rural Development Bank Limited.

Aditya Chautala contested the 2019 assembly elections from the Dabwali constituency on a BJP ticket but lost to Congress candidate Amit Sihag. After joining the INLD, he announced his candidature from the Dabwali constituency as an Independent.

Several prominent leaders have resigned from the BJP while others have sought to change the candidates in some of the seats. But there has been no official statement from the party on their contention.

The rebellion is not confined to the ruling BJP. After the release of the first list of 32 candidates, Congress too is facing dissension on some seats.

Rajesh Joon, who was eyeing a ticket from the Bahadurgarh constituency, announced to contest as an Independent after the party fielded incumbent Rajindra Joon from the constituency. He held a panchayat of his supporters before taking the decision.

Another Congress leader, Harsh Chhikara, announced to contest as an independent. A social worker, Chikkara was expecting a Congress ticket from the Gohana constituency of Sonepat, but the party chose to retain incumbent MLA Jagbir Malik. Disgruntled by the party’s decision, he chose to contest from the Gohana constituency as an independent.