The pink, yellow and green of Haryana politics (Haryana Newsletter)

As Haryana gears up for next year's general elections and the subsequent assembly polls, the state's politics is showing itself in colours of pink, yellow and green - literally, that is!

Last month saw two important rallies - both massive shows of strength - by the opposition Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the ruling Congress. On Sunday, it was the turn of the relatively new state party, Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC), and its alliance partner Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to prove that they were no less.

While the Nov 1 INLD rally in Kurukshetra was all about its green colour of the INLD, the Nov 20 Congress rally in Gohana town near Sonipat was all about pink - mainly turbans. The Dec 1 HJC rally in Hisar was all about yellow. Thus, green, pink and yellow are the colours with which the INLD, the Congress and the HJC are identified in Haryana's politics.

At a rally of ex-servicemen addressed by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in Rewari town in October, his first public rally after being declared the BJP's prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 general elections, the dominant colour was saffron, the trademark of the right-wing party.

From leaders to supporters of these parties, everyone dons turbans and other accessories in the colour of their respective parties.

While INLD leaders were seen in green headgear in Kurukshetra, Congress chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda wore a pink turban along with Congress general secretary Shakeel Ahmed at the Gohana rally.

However, the HJC, which is led by Hisar MP Kuldeep Bishnoi, the son of former chief minister Bhajan Lal, ensured that his party's yellow colour was spread wherever the eye turned at his rally in Hisar. Bishnoi himself sported a sleeveless yellow sweater. Even the mikes through which HJC-BJP leaders addressed the rally had yellow foam covers on them.

Bishnoi's family members, including his legislator wife Renuka Bishnoi, also wore yellow-coloured clothes.

In the audience, which the organizers of the HJC rally claimed was over 700,000, yellow was the dominant colour.

Last November, Hooda seemed to be in the pink of political health after the majority of the people at a Congress rally in Delhi's Ramlila ground, which was addressed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, were from Haryana.

To identify those from Haryana easily, Hooda and his colleagues not only ensured good numbers but also gave them pink turbans and other dress material to wear. Needless to say, pink was the dominant colour at the Congress rally and Hooda and his band of merry men got full marks for this.

With a triangular contest expected in Haryana in the Lok Sabha elections next April-May and assembly elections in October, no one is really sure as to which colour will emerge victorious. The electorate, though, will have to interpret what the true colours of these leaders and parties really are!

(Jaideep Sarin can be contacted at jaideep.s@ians.in)