Chandigarh: Barely two months after the Lok Sabha elections, Haryana will now vote to elect a new state government after the Election Commission on Friday (August 16) announced a single-phase election to the state’s 90 assembly constituencies on October 1.
The presence of several regional and national political players means the upcoming contest will be multi-cornered, but the recent Lok Sabha election results indicate a bipolar contest between ruling BJP and the Congress.
Mahabir Jaglan, a professor and political analyst based in Kurukshetra, told The Wire that unlike the political situation in the state that led to a hung assembly verdict in 2019, the scenario is quite different this time around.
First, he said, there has definitely been a rise in anti-incumbency against the ruling BJP as the general election result showed. The party was left with a massive drop in its vote share as well as in its number of seats.
Second, the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) – a new political party born out of a family split in the once-dominant Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) – does not look as formidable as it did in 2019, when it emerged kingmaker and helped the BJP form its second successive government in the state, mainly at the cost of the Congress’s expansion.
“With a less than 1% vote share in the Lok Sabha polls, it seems it had to pay heavy price for siding with the BJP at the peak of the farmers’ protest,” Jaglan said.
He added that the INLD was hoping for a fresh lease of life after tying up with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and announcing Abhay Chautala as the alliance’s CM candidate. But the revival of the INLD does not appear in sight due to leadership issues and the party’s overall weakening after the family feud. Moreover, an earlier alliance between the INLD and BSP failed.
Jaglan said that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which is also trying its luck, appears to have little space to grow as well. It contested one Lok Sabha seat in alliance with the Congress, but lost. Later, the Congress decided not to ally with the AAP.
“Largely speaking, the Congress remains the principal challenger to throttle the BJP’s bid to form a government for the third time in the backdrop of its better-than-expected performance in the Lok Sabha polls, mainly due to the consolidation of Jat, farmer and Dalit votes in its favour,” he also said.
As per Lok Sabha poll data from June 4, despite the fact that the BJP was dominating the larger national narrative in the election, the Congress still managed to win five out of ten seats in the state, taking the lead in 42 out of the state’s 90 assembly segments.
In 2019, it drew a blank in the Lok Sabha polls and won not more than 30 seats in subsequent assembly polls.
The state of affairs
The BJP came to power in Haryana for the first time in 2014 and then repeated its win in the 2019 assembly polls, albeit in an alliance, mainly due to massive support from non-Jat voters.
In pursuit of this, it gave the state a non-Jat CM in Manohar Lal Khattar, who occupied the chair for over nine years before he was replaced by the party’s OBC face, Nayab Singh Saini, in March this year in a bid to offset a growing challenge from the Congress.
Vijay Chauhan, assistant professor in the political science department at the Maharana Pratap National College in Mullana (Ambala), told The Wire that despite the leadership change, the BJP was still found wanting in its Lok Sabha poll performance.
But the party is still fighting state elections under Saini as CM mainly because of its strategy to capitalise on OBC voters – who form the largest vote bloc in the state, comprising 30% to 35% of its electorate – to beat anti-incumbency, he added.
He also said that along with the OBCs, the BJP is trying hard not to lose its grip over its upper caste vote base and urban voters, as was reflected by the various announcements and sops it announced in the run-up to the polls.
Naming Mohan Lal Badoli, a Brahmin, as its state president – thereby relieving Saini of the responsibility – appeared part of the same strategy, said Chauhan.
But he said it remained to be seen if all these steps will help the party stay ahead, given that the Congress will leave no stone unturned to beat it.
The Congress’s former CM Bhupinder Hooda, his son and Rohtak MP Deepnder Hooda and state party chief Udai Bhan have been holding rallies and padyatras across all of Haryana’s 90 constituencies in order to maximise voter outreach.
At the same time, Hooda’s bete noire Kumari Selja, the newly elected MP from Sirsa, has been holding separate rallies across Haryana’s urban constituencies. She had chosen to hold rally in three parliamentary seats where the BJP was ahead of the Congress in the Lok Sabha polls.
According to political analyst Kushal Pal, while the Congress appears to have an edge over the BJP ahead of the upcoming polls, the only problem for the party is the infighting among its top leadership.
Pal said that it was an open secret how the Selja and Bhupinder Hooda camps are strongly opposed to each other, which may create a problem for the Congress during the ticket distribution process and overall campaigning for the polls. The Congress has a better chance to defeat the BJP if it fights unitedly, he added.
