National president Abhay Singh Chautala said the rally will be moved two days later than the traditional September 25 date to avoid clashing with Friday prayers, underscoring the party’s sensitivity to the district’s largely Meo‑Muslim electorate.
Nuh, a Muslim‑majority district in Haryana, was once an INLD bastion, but the party’s organisational strength eroded after the 2018 split that created the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP). In the 2019 and 2024 Assembly elections, the Congress captured all three Nuh seats – Nuh, Ferozepur Jhirka and Punhana – while the INLD had won two of those seats in 2009 and 2014.
INLD officials argue that Congress’s recent internal feuding and perceived failure to capitalize on a favourable political climate have left Muslim voters disillusioned. “They feel betrayed by the Congress and now see the INLD as the only credible opposition to the BJP,” said INLD convenor and former minister Sampat Singh to The Hindu.
The party has already mobilised workers across all 90 Haryana Assembly constituencies, with special emphasis on more than a dozen seats surrounding Nuh, including Palwal, Hodal, Jhajjar, Beri and Pataudi. Senior leaders such as Sampat Singh, his son Gaurav Sampat, Arjun Chautala and state president Rampal Majra are conducting village‑level meetings in these areas.
The Nuh rally follows a “Samman Diwas” event held last year in the Jat‑dominated Sonipat‑Rohtak‑Jhajjar region, a move that the INLD described as a bid to reclaim political relevance after the 2018 split. The party also launched its 219‑day, 4,200‑km “Parivartan Padyatra” from Singar village in Nuh in February 2023, covering all 90 constituencies.
The JJP, led by Dushyant Chautala, has scheduled its own commemorations for Devi Lal’s 113th birth anniversary, including a statue unveiling in Ellenabad, highlighting the ongoing contest over the late leader’s legacy between the two Chautala factions.
Congress’s position in the region has been further weakened after two of its MLAs – Punhana’s Mohammad Ilyas and Hathin’s Mohammad Israil – voted against the party’s Rajya Sabha nominee in April and were subsequently suspended, a development the INLD hopes to exploit.