Chandigarh: It will not be wrong to say that the Haryana poll outcome on Tuesday (October 8) was an instance that baffled political observers, poll pundits, journalists and even the leaders of several political parties.
Despite palpable public anger on the ground against the BJP due to several issues like the farmers’ and wrestlers’ protests, as well as anti-incumbency after its ten-year rule, the party is poised to form its third consecutive government with a thumping majority, a first such instance in state’s 60 years of electoral history.
As per the latest Election Commission data, the BJP has won 48 out of Haryana’s 90 assembly constituencies, bettering its tally in 2014, when it first formed the government in the state with 47 seats.
This performance is also far better than its 2019 tally of 40 seats, when it fell short of a majority and had to take the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP)’s support to stay in power.
The Congress, on the other hand, has been restricted to 37 seats, seven more than what it got in the 2019 assembly polls and well short of the majority mark of 46 seats. Several Congress leaders conceded defeat, saying that the result was surprising.
As the election data shows, the BJP has not only held on to its strongholds in the state’s northern and southern regions, it made a serious dent in Congress Jat leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s fortress in Panipat and Sonipat districts as well, besides performing equally well in the other Jat-dominated Hisar and Jind districts.
All these districts were hubs of farmers protesting against the BJP in 2020 and later in 2024.
The BJP’s performance suggests that talks of massive farmer- and particularly Jat consolidation in favour of the Congress were incorrect.
Even Dalits did not stand behind the Congress as was being hoped. Both the BJP and the Congress won almost an equal number of the state’s 17 SC-reserved seats.
The contest, as it turns out, was largely bipolar between the Congress and the BJP. The recent Lok Sabha election verdict exposed vulnerabilities in the BJP after a decade of its complete dominance in the northern Hindi heartland.
In its first major election since July’s Lok Sabha polls, the Congress was largely hoping to increase its footprint in the Hindi heartland and build momentum for the upcoming state elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand.
But the party failed to seize the moment in Haryana, despite having fertile ground to defeat the apparently weakened BJP, which even kept Prime Minister Narendra Modi out of the hectic election campaign in the state.
Other players like the JJP – which emerged the kingmaker in 2019 polls – were completely wiped out, as was the Aam Aadmi Party.
The resentment against the JJP could be gauged from the fact that its leader Dushyant Chautala slid to fifth place in his bastion of Uchana Kalan in Jind district.
With just two seats, the Indian National Lok Dal also failed to impress despite tall claims of its political revival. Its leader Abhay Chautala too lost the election from his stronghold of Ellenabad in Sirsa district.
Three independents also registered victories in Haryana – one is a BJP rebel, while two are rebels from the Congress. Notable among these is BJP rebel Savitri Jindal, who has won from the Hisar seat.
What made the Congress lose?
Political analyst Kushal Pal told The Wire that the Congress thought that focusing on ground issues would make it the de facto choice of voters in Haryana. No doubt the public resentment against the BJP was a reality in this election, but Haryana’s politics has another important side, which is caste identity politics, where the Congress completely flipped, giving opportunity to the BJP to revive itself, he said.
Pal added that the Congress’s slogan of the 36 biradaris’ bhaichara proved futile in the absence of pushing for a collective leadership during the election and accommodating the interests of all factions within the party.
The message was loud and clear in the Congress that Hooda, its prominent Jat leader, was running the entire show, even having a lion’s share of the ticket distribution, Pal also said, adding that the party’s strategy may have been to win the polls through a consolidation of Jat votes, but in doing so, it took leaders of other castes casually.
Also read: Haryana Election: The Bhaichara of the 36 Biradaris
For instance, the Congress should have fielded its Dalit leader Kumari Selja in the election to balance the caste coalition. Rather, the party sidelined her. Later, her public anguish gave opportunity to the BJP to engineer Jat vs non-Jat polarisation, for which only the Congress is to be blamed, Pal said.
He said he had heard leaders from the Hooda camp openly say in public meetings that ‘aaye ga to Hooda hi’ (only Hooda will come), which could have been avoided especially when the Congress top brass was claiming to accommodate all 36 biradaris.
According to him, the party may have lost many seats due to the internal rift between the Selja and Hooda camps, as leaders associated with both factions did not work on the ground for each other. For instance, in seats like Ambala Cantonment, where a Selja-backed leader was given the ticket, a Hooda-camp leader filed a nomination as an independent. The party lost that seat due to the division of anti-BJP votes, Pal said.
He continued to say that ticket distribution was also not up to the mark. For instance, in the Ballabgarh seat in Faridabad, a Congress rebel got over 44,000 votes, whereas the Congress candidate did not poll more than 9,000 votes.
“One must understand that Hooda’s political fallout in 2014 after [a] ten-year rule was the result of resentment among non-Jat communities, which was rooted historically too in social conflict between backward and forward communities. The Congress did not see things in retrospect while preparing its possible strategy for the 2024 elections and made similar mistakes as in the past,” Pal concluded.
He also explained that credit should also be given to the BJP for changing first its chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar and replacing a majority of its candidates in order to beat anti-incumbency, and then elevating an OBC, Nayab Saini, as chief minister to capture an important OBC vote bank in the state.
Pal said that the party’s consolidating its position among other non-Jat communities too went in its favour.
Daggers appear to have been drawn in the Congress after the party’s apparent loss. Selja told the media a short while ago that the results were disappointing. “We will have to introspect on why people stepped back from forming a Congress government in the state,” she added.
In a veiled remark against Hooda, Selja said that the status quo needed to be changed. The responsibility must be fixed on the people accountable for maintaining balance in the party, she added.
Hooda is yet to make a public comment.
On the other hand, Saini gave credit for the BJP’s victory to Modi, whom he said made welfare policies for all segments of society, making the party win.
Also read: CM Hopefuls, Wrestlers, Heavyweights and Legacies: Constituencies That Decided Haryana’s Future
BJP’s breach of Hooda stronghold major surprise
Haryana is broadly divided into five regions, namely north Haryana along the GT road, south Haryana along the National Capital Region, the western belt adjoining the Punjab and Rajasthan border, known as the Bagri belt, and the central part, consisting of the Banger and Deswali belt.
As per the poll result, the BJP bettered its tally in its stronghold of south Haryana on the back of support from the Ahir, Gujjar and other non-Jat communities. Against 15 seats in 2019, it won 17 seats here, sweeping Gurgaon, Faridabad, Mahendragarh, Rewari as well as Palwal.
The only positive for the Congress here is the Muslim-dominated Nuh region.
The major surprise in this election is the BJP breaching Hooda’s stronghold of the Jat-dominated Deswali belt, comprising 25 assembly seats in Panipat, Sonipat, Rohtak, Jhajjar and Hisar.
In 2019, the BJP won just seven seats, a tally that has increased to 12 due to the party sweeping all four seats in Panipat and winning four out of five seats in Sonipat.
The BJP also did fairly well in the Banger and Bagari belt, also having a dominance of Jats as well as Dalits in areas like Jind, Charkhi Dadri and Bhiwani.
The saffron party also held on to its other stronghold of north Haryana seats, winning all five seats in Karnal against three seats in 2019. Overall, its ten seats across Panchkula, Ambala, Yamunanagar, Kurukshetra and Karnal amount to the same tally as in the last election.
Among prominent leaders who won elections are Saini from Ladwa, Anil Vij from Ambala Cantonment, Bhupinder Singh Hooda from Garhi Sampla-Kiloi and Vinesh Phogat from Julana.
At least eight of the 14 ministers in Saini’s council of ministers won the election.
Among prominent losers are Abhay Chautala from Ellenabad and Dushyant Chautala from Uchana Kalan.
