Congress to the fore as BJP loses seats, vote share

CHANDIGARH: The "Modi wave" that helped BJP sweep Haryana's 10 seats with unprecedented margins in 2019 failed to cut much ice with the electorate this time as the ruling party could manage to retain only five seats, that too with massively reduced margins. Congress has made a strong comeback with the gain of five seats. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which was contesting only in Kurukshetra, lost in a close fight.

The results indicate that the farmers' issue, unemployment, the Agnipath scheme, and the old pension scheme (OPS) had an impact on voters this time. Besides, there was strong anti-incumbency against the state BJP government, especially against former CM Manohar Lal Khattar.

In Karnal, Khattar won by a margin of over 2.3 lakh votes, whereas the seat was secured in 2019 by BJP MP Sanjay Bhatia with a margin of more than 6.56 lakh votes.

Although the party replaced Khattar with Kurukshetra MP Nayab Singh Saini just before the announcement of the Lok Sabha polls to beat the strong anti-incumbency current, Khattar led the party in the parliamentary polls, with both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah promising to accommodate him at the Centre.

The fact that BJP could not perform on expected lines even though Modi, Amit Shah and UP CM Yogi Adityanath had campaigned in Haryana is a big worry for the saffron party.

The results are not a positive sign for BJP with state assembly polls slated for Oct this year. The victory of Congress candidates has indicated that Bhupinder Singh Hooda is the party's only crowd-puller in the state. Most of the Congress tickets in Haryana were given on his advice.

Hooda's surprise pick, Satpal Brahamchari, from Haridwar, also surprised everyone by registering victory in the Sonipat seat. His surprise pick from Gurgaon, Raj Babbar, lost to BJP's Rao Inderjit Singh but gave a tough fight to the Union minister.

All candidates of Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), which was once the state's main opposition party, and its splinter group, Dushyant Chautala-led JJP, which was a partner in power with BJP for the past four-and-a-half years, lost their deposits on all seats.

Prominent leaders who won in Haryana are Kumari Selja (Congress) from Sirsa, Hooda (Congress) from Rohtak, Khattar (BJP) from Karnal, and both Union ministers - Rao Inderjit Singh and Krishan Pal from Gurgaon and Faridabad, respectively. Those who lost include former deputy PM Devi Lal's son Ranjit Singh Chautala (BJP), former Union minister Rattan Lal Kataria's widow Banto Kataria (BJP), former RS MP Sushil Gupta (AAP), Congress MLA Rao Dan Singh, and BJP MLA Mohan Lal Badoli.