Gurugram: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sprung a surprise in the Haryana Assembly elections, bettering its performance from the Lok Sabha elections in which it led in 44 assembly segments. On Tuesday, it won 48 seats, although its vote share witnessed a decline to 39.94 percent from over 46 percent in the Lok Sabha polls. Interestingly, with almost an equal voter share (39.09 percent), the Congress won just 36 seats and led on one, according to the Election Commission data as of 8pm.
From losing 5 out of 10 seats in the Lok Sabha where the party trailed behind the INDIA bloc candidates on 46 of 90 assembly seats, the BJP in Haryana has virtually turned the tables with the party likely to form government for the third time in a row—a first in the state’s 57-year history.
The BJP’s performance left many political analysts ThePrint spoke to surprised.
Haryana-based political analyst, Mahabir Jaglan said, “The BJP has surprised everyone with its performance. The trends so far show that while the BJP has been able to hold on to the 44 assembly seats the party had led during the Lok Sabha elections, it has also managed to consolidate its position on several other seats it trailed in May 2024.”
“The party is ahead on almost all seats in Hisar district where the Congress won during Lok Sabha polls. The BJP has also made inroads in former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s strongholds like Rai, Kharkhoda, Gohana, and Sonipat seats,” he said.
Jaglan said the trend showed that the BJP swept Ahirwal and southern Haryana, except for the Mewat region. The party was ahead of the Congress along the GT Road belt, and, surprisingly, also won several seats that were considered the stronghold of the Congress or Chauatalas, such as Uchana, Narwana, Barwala, Tosham, and Badhra, among others.
While the Ahirwal and the GT Road belt were always BJP’s strongholds, the party’s performance in Hisar and Bhiwani shows that it has consolidated its vote bank, Jaglan added.
Kushal Pal, a professor of political science and the principal of Indira Gandhi National College, Ladwa, said there were several factors that worked in favour of the BJP and against the Congress in this election.
“First, the BJP has a strong organisational structure that goes right upto the grassroots level, booth level and the Panna (pramukh) level. They had active support of RSS this time. This helped them ensure their voters cast their votes. The Congress, on the other hand, was beset with an overconfidence after winning 5 seats in the Lok Sabha polls,” Pal told ThePrint.
He further said that consolidation of non-Jat votes through ‘Jat vs. non-Jat’ politics, particularly the Other Backward Classes votes is another reason why the BJP has been able to achieve this victory in this election.
While it managed to unite non-Jat voters, it also won 9 new seats in Jat strongholds.
“When the BJP appointed Nayab Saini the CM in Haryana on 12 March, he had very little time to consolidate OBCs ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. However, he has been able to consolidate these voters now,” said Kushal Pal.
Explaining the huge difference in the number of seats won by BJP and the Congress despite almost equal vote share, Pal said that this is very common in elections.
“In political science, we teach the difference between First Past the Post (FPTP) and Proportional Representation (PR). In the FPTP followed in our country a candidate who receives the maximum number of votes in a constituency wins.
“Under the PR system, seats in legislature proportionate to the party’s percentage of votes. If some Congress MLAs have won by huge margin the vote share will go up. There is a possibility that several BJP MLAs might have won by a smaller margin,” he added.