assembly-elections

Updated: Oct 25, 2019 05:52 IST

A galloping Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tripped, but avoided a fall in elections to the Haryana assembly that it had been expected to win easily. The BJP, whose campaign slogan was abki baar 75 paar (this time it will be over 75 seats), fell short of a simple majority (46 seats) in the 90-member state assembly with a tally of 40. This comes mere months after the party swept all 10 Lok Sabha seats.

The Congress, on the other hand, performed better than most exit polls had predicted, winning 31 seats -- more than doubling its previous tally of 15.

The BJP is now looking to win the support of seven independents, one Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and one Haryana Lokhit Party (HLP) legislator each to form the government. There is a strong possibility that Dushyant Chautala’s fledgling Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), with 10 seats, would also be approached. This would strengthen the likely coalition arrangement.

As the vote count for the October 21 elections opened, the BJP started off by establishing a lead in 79 assembly segments in its quest to retain power in Haryana under Manohar Lal Khattar. A weak and depleted opposition, plagued by infighting and desertions, seemed to have only reinforced its chances.

The rest of the day panned out differently with all contesting ministers except Anil Vij (Ambala city) and Banwari Lal (Bawal) losing. Heavyweights like Capt Abhimanyu (Narnaul), Ram Bilas Sharma (Mahendergarh), Om Prakash Dhankar (Badli), Krishan Lal Panwar (Israna), Kavita Jain (Sonipat) and, Krishan Kumar Bedi (Shahabad) were handed crushing defeats. Two other ministers, Manish Grover (Rohtak city) and Karan Dev Kamboj (Indri), lost by slender margins.

Khattar (Karnal) won by over 45,000 votes, Banwari Lal by over 32,000 votes and Anil Vij by over 20,000 votes to provide a saving grace for the BJP.

State BJP president Subhash Barala too was defeated by JJP’s Devender Babli by over 52,000 votes from the Tohana assembly seat in Fatehabad district.

The Congress, which looked out of sorts during the campaign, won almost one-third of its 31 seats from the Rohtak-Sonipat belt. The region is considered a bastion of former chief minister and Congress campaign committee chairperson Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who triumphed by about 58,000 votes from Garhi-Sampla Kiloi in Rohtak district.

Other prominent Congress winners included former Haryana minister Kiran Chaudhary from Tosham in Bhiwani district and Kuldeep Bishnoi from Adampur in Hisar district.

The biggest upset for the Congress was in Kaithal, where Congress’s chief spokesperson, Randeep Singh Surjewala, lost by a slender margin of 1,246 votes to BJP’s Leela Ram Gurjar.

One feature of the Haryana assembly election was the emergence of JJP as a political force in Haryana under Dushyant Chautala. It won 10 seats.

Of the 11 Indian National Lok Dal legislators, who joined the BJP before elections, seven lost. However, the two Congress leaders, who joined the BJP, won.

As Thursday drew to a close, both the Congress and the BJP were making efforts to stitch together an alliance with the JJP and were wooing the seven independents to form the government. Khattar even staked his claim to forming the next government.

BJP national president Amit Shah tweeted: “In the last five years, the Khattar government under Modi’s central leadership made every effort for the welfare of the people of Haryana. I congratulate the public for making BJP the largest party and giving it a chance to serve again.”

BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao said the Congress tends to see a victory even in a loss or calls it a moral victory instead of a defeat. “Haryana has traditionally been a Congress stronghold. And, until 2014, our vote share was not even 2%. It was in 2014 that we scripted a big win,” he said.

Hooda expressed confidence about forming the government and urged all opposition parties to come together to keep the BJP out. “I had seen signs of dissent against the BJP for some time and the vote is against the BJP. I urge all opposition parties to join hands to form the next government,” he said.

Rajendra Sharma, a political science professor at Maharshi Dayanand University in Rohtak, said the Jat-dominated areas had clearly voted against the BJP while the belt dominated by Punjabis and Banias (the trading community) had supported the BJP. “The loss of so many sitting MLAs and most of the ministers shows that there was a strong anti-incumbency against the government which the opposition could not encash properly,” Sharma said.

The impact of the poll results was visible in the celebrations by various parties. The BJP celebrations were subdued while there was obvious jubilation among the Congress and JJP workers, who burst crackers and distributed sweets.

This was more apparent in the Jat belt of Rohtak, Sonipat, Sirsa, Hisar and Bhiwani districts, where the BJP received a drubbing. A large number of party workers assembled at the homes of Hooda and Dushyant Chautala and started bursting crackers as trends showed the Congress and JJP doing well; the BJP cancelled a planned celebration at its state headquarters in Rohtak.