Gurugram: The resurgence of Congress in Haryana by winning five out of 10 parliamentary seats after being washed out in 2019 and tied to a single seat in 2014, is being viewed as a shot in the arm for the party ahead of assembly polls due in October.
Former Union minister Kumari Selja defeated Ashok Tanwar of the BJP at Sirsa by a margin of 2.68 lakh votes, while Deepender Singh Hooda defeated BJP’s Arvind Sharma by 3.45 lakh votes at Rohtak.
Jai Parkash won Hisar by 63,381 votes, Varun Chaudhry clinched Ambala by 49,036 votes, and Satpal Brahmachari wrestled Sonipat by 21,816 votes.
In the process, the candidates of the Congress and its ally, the Aam Aadmi Party, took a lead over their BJP rivals in 46 out of 90 assembly segments in Haryana.
As against the BJP’s vote share of 46.11 percent, the INDIA bloc’s share was 47.61 percent (Congress 43.67 percent and AAP 3.94 percent). The AAP had contested Kurukshetra’s seat while the Congress had fielded its candidates on the rest of the nine seats.
Kumari Selja and Deepender Singh Hooda got more votes than their rivals in all 9 assembly segments each in Sirsa and Rohtak. Among the other seats in its tally, the Congress candidates got the lead in five out of 9 assembly segments in Ambala, four out of 9 in Sonipat, and six out of 9 in Hisar.
As for the seats won by the BJP, the Congress and AAP candidates got the lead on four out of 9 assembly segments in Kurukshetra, 3 out of 9 in Bhiwani-Mahendragarh, three out of 9 in Gurgaon, and 3 out of 9 assembly seats in Faridabad.
Former chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, however, had the lead in all 9 assembly segments falling under Karnal.
Of the 10 assembly segments that Dushyant Chautala’s Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) won in October 2019, the Congress got the lead in 9. Only Barwala gave a lead of 11,657 votes to the BJP.
Congress’s Jai Parkash led over his BJP rival by 37,319 votes in Dushyant Chautala’s Uchana seat, while another Congressman Rao Dan Singh led by 27,102 votes over the BJP contestant in Naina Chautala’s Badhra constituency.
Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda said the results of the Lok Sabha polls clearly indicate that the Congress was coming to power after the assembly elections.
“People of Haryana have given a clear verdict against the BJP. Our candidates have taken the lead on 46 assembly segments, which is more than half of the total seats. Further, the issues during assembly polls are different and we will definitely get many more seats than 46 in the assembly polls,” Hooda told The Print Thursday.
There are 90 Assembly constituencies in Haryana.
While the Congress failed to open its account in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, it won 31 out of 90 seats in the state elections held that year.
“People are fed up with the BJP government in the state. It did nothing for the people in the past more than nine years. Youths are unhappy because they haven’t got jobs. Farmers are unhappy because they don’t get remunerative prices for their crops. Women are worried because of poor law and order in the state. And, the general public is unhappy because of rampant corruption in the officialdom,” said Hooda.
“Rather than addressing any of these issues, the BJP tried hard to get votes by polarising voters on caste lines. The ruling party succeeded in its nefarious designs last time, but the people of Haryana have refused to go for the BJP’s divisive politics this year.”
Haryana BJP chief and party’s national secretary O.P. Dhankhar conceded that the results were worrying. “The results of the Parliamentary polls are not as per our expectation, and there is no denying that everyone in the party is worried about it, particularly because the assembly polls are due in October,” he told The Print.
Ranbir Singh Gulia, a retired professor of political science from Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak, said that the outcome of the parliamentary elections in Haryana was not surprising at all.
“Ever since the EC announced elections on 16 March, it became evident that the people of Haryana were very angry with the dispensation. Many people, who were silent, feared the high-handed measures that the BJP government took to curb dissent. … People were quite vocal about their loathing of the BJP government; they have given their verdict accordingly,” Gulia told ThePrint.
He highlighted the fact that the Congress candidates polled more votes than their opponents in 46 out of 90 seats and predicted that the assembly results were going to be better for the Congress.
“It is common knowledge that many people, particularly in urban areas, voted for BJP to see Modi as PM again despite their loathing for the BJP government in Haryana. This will not be the case in the assembly elections,” he added.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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Since the state assembly elections are largely contested on local issues, Congress should not be swayed by the highly encouraging results of Lok Sabha elections. Moreover, it can’t bank on the support of APP for creating some miracles in the ensuing Haryana Assembly elections more so when BJP is bound to rework its poll strategy after biting dust on as many as five seats during Lok Sabha elections..