Chandigarh: New parties and fresh alliances have changed the landscape of Haryana politics ahead of the Lok Sabha elections on 12 May.
The state’s traditional battle between the Congress and the Indian National Lok Dal got swept aside by the BJP in 2014, but now, each of its 10 Lok Sabha seats is witnessing keen multi-cornered contests.
The Lok Sabha polls are being held in the wake of acute fragmentation of the Jat vote and the coming together of Dalits and backward classes as a separate anti-Jat, anti-BJP vote bank.
The INLD has split after an ugly spat within the Chautala family, with the breakaway Jannayak Janata Party steered by Hisar MP Dushyant Chautala posing a serious threat to the core Jat vote bank.
The BJP is also facing a challenge from a breakaway faction called the Lok Suraksha Party, headed by rebel Kurukshetra MP Rajkumar Saini.
Caste equations
Haryana has almost 29 per cent Jat population, and another 20 per cent Dalits and backward classes. In the past, a majority of the Jat vote went to the INLD and some to the Congress under the leadership of Bhupinder Singh Hooda, the two-time former chief minister.
Also read: BJP is looking to get around caste, the pulse of Haryana politics, and win the state
The Bahujan Samaj Party has traditionally enjoyed support among the Dalits, but this has progressively gotten smaller, landing in the Congress kitty.
In 2014, while the Jat voters stuck mainly to the INLD and the Congress, non-Jats consolidated in favour of the BJP thanks to Narendra Modi’s popularity. The party won seven of the 10 Lok Sabha seats, and in the assembly elections later in the year, won a majority for the first time with 47 seats out of 90.
But now, five years on, the situation has changed markedly.
JJP’s potential impact
The INLD-JJP split is bound to have an impact on Jat-dominated seats like Rohtak, Sonipat, Bhiwani-Mahendragarh and Hisar. The JJP’s debut will impact INLD candidates in these four seats, as well as on the Congress and the BJP on seats where they have fielded strong Jat candidates.
In Sonipat, Congress stalwart Hooda is facing a challenge from JJP’s Digvijay Chautala, Dushyant’s younger brother, and the INLD’s Surinder Chhikara, another strong Jat candidate.
“For the JJP, the race is no longer with the INLD, which it considers a non-entity, but with top Jat leaders of the Congress. If JJP defeats Hooda, it becomes a giant slayer. In fact, Digvijay was fielded from Sonipat only after Congress announced Hooda’s name,” said Dharampal, a shop owner in Sonipat.
In Rohtak, where Hooda’s three-time MP son Deepender is in the fray, the situation is no different.
In Hisar, the BJP has fielded a Jat candidate in former IAS officer Brijendra Singh, son of union steel minister Birender Singh. However, JJP’s Dushyant, the sitting MP, is likely to mop up most of the Jat votes. The Congress has fielded Bhavya Bishnoi, grandson of former chief minister Bhajan Lal, eyeing the non-Jat vote.
Also read: How 5 families over 3 generations have controlled Haryana’s politics from day one
In the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh seat, the JJP has fielded a non-Jat candidate, Swati Yadav, while the other parties have fielded Jats — Dharambir Singh for the BJP; Shruti Chaudhary, daughter of MLA Kiran Chaudhary, for the Congress; and Balwan Singh for the INLD. The Jat vote, thus, could be split here.
The AAP factor
The Aam Aadmi Party was preparing to go solo in these elections, as it had done in 2014. But in the end, it tied up with the JJP.
While the AAP did not win a single seat in Haryana, its candidates garnered on average 40,000-50,000 votes on almost all seats. Given that factor, the AAP-JJP alliance may not be able to wrest many seats, but will pose a serious enough threat to the top contenders in Ambala, Sirsa, Gurgaon and Faridabad. Incidentally, AAP’s state chief Naveen Jaihind is contesting from Faridabad.
BSP-LSP alliance
Last year, rebel BJP MP Rajkumar Saini created his own political outfit, the Lok Suraksha Party, which has now allied with the BSP.
The alliance aims to bring together the traditional Dalit vote bank of the BSP and the backward classes. Its motto is ‘35 biradari against one’, and it wants to end the predominance of Jats in politics, government jobs etc.
The alliance is expected the upset the applecart for the Congress, BJP and INLD in Kurukshetra, Karnal and Ambala.
BJP will get 10 seat in Haryana definitely. Take my word. JJP will only harm congress.
What was the harm in the Congress tying up with AAP in both Delhi and Haryana. As an act of grace, it could also have been offered one out of Punjab’s 13 seats.