Raj Babbar, the Congress candidate from Gurgaon, lost to his BJP opponent Rao Inderjit Singh by 75,079 votes, according to the Election Commission data.
The actor-politician has faced two successive defeats in 2014 and 2019 against BJP’s General (Retired) VK Singh in Ghaziabad and then Raj Kumar Chahar in Fatehpur Sikri, respectively.
In 2009, Mr Babbar defeated Samajwadi Party’s Dimple Yadav, the wife of Akhilesh Yadav, by a margin of 85,000 votes in the Firozabad seat.
Mr Babbar, 71, an alumnus of National School of Drama, worked in films such as Nikaah, Insaaf Ka Tarazu, Kalyug and Umrao Jaan.
In the 2019 general elections, the BJP swept the state, winning all 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana. This time it managed to hold on to five seats this time while the Congress, which fielded candidates on 9 seats, reaped gains in five. INDIA bloc ally AAP contested the Kurukshetra seat.
AAP’s Sushil Gupta lost to BJP’s Naveen Jindal from the seat.
Reacting to the performance of the Congress in Haryana and INDIA bloc in the country, Congress leader Deepender Singh Hooda, who wrested his traditional Rohtak seat from BJP’s Arvind Sharma, said, “This is a victory of democracy. People have voted to save the Constitution”.
He alleged that the BJP indulged in divisive agenda, which the people have defeated.
“They have voted against arrogance of the BJP. It is the victory of people of India and Haryana,” he said.
The Congress’ performance in Haryana in the Lok Sabha polls has also come as a boost to Bhupinder Hooda, the 76-year-old satrap who remains the party’s face in the state.
