JIND: Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala, 51, the party’s candidate for the high-stake Jind assembly bypoll, describes himself as “son of the soil.” A typical campaign day starts early for him. By 8am, he hits the road, in his trademark white kurta-pyjama, meeting people in rural and urban areas of the constituency. After a series of public meetings, he meets small groups of leaders. Plans for the next day are drawn up in these meetings, which continue late into the night.On Saturday, he started the day by meeting party workers waiting for him in the lawn. By 9am, his grey SUV was headed towards residential colonies in rural areas. He sits on the front passenger seat like most political leaders to keep a tab on voters from the window pane and wave at them.Surjewala addresses a minimum of seven villages. Saturday’s programme took off from Ikkas village, where he was joined by Rohtak parliamentarian Deepender Singh Hooda, a popular Jat leader. Reiterating his identity as a native, he said he would bring Jind district on the world map. He has covered 28 villages in the constituency so far.“I am not an outsider. I am from Jind as I was born and brought up here and the fact can't be denied on records. If I win, I will make it my workplace also,” said Surjewala, incumbent MLA from Kaithal district.The next 15 minutes of the speech focused on lack of development and how the Congress can offer solutions. He attends around two public meetings in every village and has more 20 ‘chai pe charcha’ programmes for direct contact with people.Surjewala’s cavalcade consists of more than 36 cars and SUVs. But on reaching the village, he hopps on to a bike to zip through narrow bylanes. A Congress leader said to pacify disgruntled party leaders, he often takes them to his car and gives them a patient hearing. Then he tries to resolve their issues.Surjewala also keeps local Congress leaders who were upset at not having been given tickets with him. These include Parmod Sehwag, Anshul Singla, Raghubir Bhardwaj and Baljeet Redhu. He gives them an opportunity to address public meetings in villages to spread the message that every faction is with him.Surjewala concludes his village programme at 8pm. This is followed by the door to door programme in the city, which continues till late night. His aides said he usually calls it a day at 2am and wakes up at 7am to repeat the process.Surjewala has a different team for each task and has formed coordination teams for smooth event management. He has an IT team, media team, overall coordination team and a member from AICC, Vinit Punia coordinating with every committee.He is accompanied by senior party leaders from the state. On Sunday, it will be Kumari Selja.

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