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Informist, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024

NEW DELHI – The Congress party is all set to return to power in Haryana after a gap of 10 years, according to the exit polls Saturday. The pollsters predicted around 55 seats, a jump of nearly 25 seats, for the Congress in the 90-member Haryana Assembly, voting for which was held Saturday.

 

The majority mark for the state Assembly is 46. As per the exit polls, the Congress party's vote share too may see a significant jump to 44% from 28% in 2019. The grand-old party had won 31 seats in 2019. The exit polls predicted 25-26 seats for the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party in Haryana, a fall of nearly 15 seats from its 2019 tally.

 

The BJP, which has been in power in Haryana since 2014, had won 40 seats in the 2019 elections. The saffron party's vote share, however, is likely to go up marginally to 37% from 36% in 2019, as per the exit polls. The vote share of regional parties, like the Jannayak Janata Party and others have shifted to the Congress party, according to the predictions.

 

Led by Dushyant Chautala, the Jannayak Janata Party, which played the role of king maker in 2019 with 10 seats in its bucket, may fail to win even a single seat this time. Indian National Lok Dal, led by Abhay Singh Chautala, is expected to win 3-4 seats.

 

The Aam Aadmi Party, which contested on all the 90 seats, is unlikely to open its tally in the home state of its national convener Arvind Kejriwal. The AAP decided to contest on all seats after it failed to forge an alliance with Congress.

 

The BJP is likely to have failed in tackling anti-incumbency and the caste factor in the state despite changing the chief minister just before the Lok Sabha elections held in May. The BJP contested the Assembly elections under the chief ministership of Nayab Singh Saini, who took over the reins in March, when former chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar and his council of ministers resigned amid differences between the BJP and its coalition ally JJP.

 

Positioning Saini was a move by the BJP to consolidate the votes of the Other Backward Classes to counter anti-incumbency factor. But going by the exit polls, it seems that the strategy didn't work for the saffron party. Resentment against the BJP in the state has escalated over the past one year, following violence against farmers from Punjab and Haryana protesting against the central government's farm policies. Even before this, the party had been at the receiving end following protests by wrestlers against BJP leader and then Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Singh over charges of sexual harassment.

 

Meanwhile, the Jat community, which has a strong 25-28% of voter base in the state, seems to have strongly backed the Congress party. The Dalit votes too seem to have shifted to the Congress party, exit polls showed.

 

Below are the results of exit polls in Haryana:

Exit Polls	BJP	Congress	Others
India Today-CVoter	20-28	50-58	10-16
Matrize	18-24	55-62	5-14
Peoples Pulse	26	55	5-9
P-Marq	31	56	3
News 24 - Chanakya	18-24	55-62	2-5
2019 Election Result	40	31	19

 

 

End

 

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

 

Reported by Kuldeep Singh

Edited by Vandana Hingorani

 

 

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