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Informist, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024

 

NEW DELHI – Defying all exit polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday secured a historic victory in the Haryana Assembly elections. Winning 48 of the 90 seats, the saffron party stormed to power in the state for the third consecutive term. Nearly 40% of the votes in the state were in favour of the BJP, an increase from 36.49% in 2019.

 

The party's third consecutive term in Haryana is a first for any party since Assembly elections in the state started in 1967.

 

Exit polls on Saturday had predicted a Congress government in the state and had given 25-26 seats to the incumbent BJP. The actual results came as a surprise to everyone monitoring the polls, including the Congress party, which secured 37 seats.

 

In initial trends, the Congress party was leading on 50 seats and the BJP on over 30 seats. But as the counting went ahead of the fourth round, numbers started taking a different turn and the Congress party's tally fell to 35-36. The Congress, however, increased its tally from 31 in 2019 and its vote share also increased to 39% from 28% in 2019.

 

The Indian National Lok Dal won two seats and independents won three. The Indian National Lok Dal's tally rose by one seat and its vote share also saw a marginal rise from 2.44% in 2019 to 4.14%.

 

BJP'S HAT-TRICK

According to BJP leaders, the party succeeded in forming the 'Jat vs non-Jat' narrative during the elections and consolidated votes of the Other Backward Classes and other castes in its favour. The results indicated that the BJP successfully mobilised the non-Jat vote in its favour.

 

The saffron party's decision to replace Manohar Lal with Naib Singh Saini as the chief minister of the state in March turned out to be a masterstroke. The move helped the party counter anti-incumbency and also brought the Other Backward Classes' votes in its favour, as Saini belongs to this category. Saini won the elections from the Ladwa seat with a margin of over 16,000 votes.

 

CONGRESS CRIES FOUL

The Congress party termed the results "completely surprising, unexpected and unacceptable". The party alleged tampering with electronic voting machines in the state. Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said the results went against the ground reality.

 

"It goes against ground reality...it is not possible for us to accept the results today. What we have seen today in Haryana is a victory for manipulation, and defeat for transparent democratic processes. The chapter on Haryana is not complete. It will continue," Ramesh said at a press briefing.

 

The Congress party alleged that a lot of party candidates complained about machine tampering, primarily in three districts. Ramesh said some of the candidates referred to some electronic voting machines having 99?ttery strength even after many rounds of counting and the results from all such machines went against the Congress. However, machines, whose battery strength was normal – at 60-70% – showed Congress candidates winning, he said. Congress leader Pawan Khera said there were several other serious complaints that were being collected and in the coming days, the party would approach the Election Commission of India.

 

Among the key candidates, Congress leader and wrestler Vinesh Phogat won the Julana seat with a margin of over 6,000 votes. Former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda won the Garhi Sampla-Kiloi seat with a margin of over 71,000 votes.

 

LOW-MARGIN SEATS

In seven seats, the margin was less than 2,000 votes and of these, three seats were won with a margin of less than 1,000 votes. The Uchana Kalan seat saw the lowest winning margin of just 32 votes, with the seat won by the BJP. Similarly, the Indian National Lok Dal won the Dabwali Assembly seat with a margin of 610 seats, and the Congress won the Loharu seat with a margin of 792 seats.

 

JJP WIPED OUT

Among the regional parties, the results will be a nightmare for the Jannayak Janata Party led by Dushyant Chautala. The party's tally was reduced to nil from the 10 seats it had won in 2019. The JJP had played the role of kingmaker in 2019, and Chautala had become the deputy chief minister.

 

The party broke the alliance before the Lok Sabha polls this year over the issue of seat sharing. The party didn't win a single seat in the Lok Sabha elections too. Its vote share shrank to below 1% from over 14% in 2019.  End

 

Reported by Kuldeep Singh

Edited by Avishek Dutta

 

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