Haryana polls: Why Cong failed to strike despite anti-incumbency
The BJP was leading in 47 seats in Haryana as compared to 36 seats for the Congress, as of 11am. However, the Congress had a higher vote share of 40.57%, as compared to about 38.80% for the BJP
The Congress appears to have far underperformed expectations and predictions in the Haryana assembly elections, according to early trends.
Former Haryana chief minister and senior Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda speaks to reporters during a press conference in Delhi on Monday. (ANI)
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was leading in 47 seats in the 90-member Haryana assembly as compared to 36 seats for the Congress, as of 11am. However, the Congress had a higher vote share of 40.57%, as compared to about 38.80% for the BJP. The majority mark in the state is 46 seats.
{{^htLoading}} {{/htLoading}}
Early trends showed that the Haryana contest is far closer than anticipated, with 25% of the votes in the states counted.
The Congress, it seems, was far too dependent on former chief minister and senior leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda, an overreliance that has not paid off. The Congress believed Jat, Dalit and Muslim votes together would ensure its victory in the state.
But, the BJP appeared to have better consolidated its vote among non-Jat and non-Muslim votes. Further, the party’s plan to consolidate non-Jat other backward classes (OBC) votes appeared to work for it.
The BJP appears to have retained its stronghold in the non-Jat areas of eastern and southern Haryana. It has done remarkably well in Jat-dominated western Haryana, where non-Jat votes appeared to have coalesced for the BJP in large numbers.
{{^htLoading}} {{/htLoading}}
{{^usCountry}}
Despite perceived anti-incumbency against the BJP, the Congress has not been able to check infighting between Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Kumari Selja, tensions that also appear to have blunted the party’s prospects. On the ground, the Congress did not contest the polls as unitedly as the BJP did, with several rebels contesting as independents.
{{/usCountry}}
{{#usCountry}}
Despite perceived anti-incumbency against the BJP, the Congress has not been able to check infighting between Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Kumari Selja, tensions that also appear to have blunted the party’s prospects. On the ground, the Congress did not contest the polls as unitedly as the BJP did, with several rebels contesting as independents.
{{/usCountry}}
Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s possible return as chief minister, though the party did not announce his name for the position, also went against the party.
Among the non-Jat votes in Haryana, Hooda government between 2004 and 2014 was perceived as corrupt and performed poorly on governance metrics. During his regime, law and order in the state was said to have devolved as well.
The BJP has performed better on these fronts in its decade in power, said a political analyst who asked not to be named.
{{^htLoading}} {{/htLoading}}
“There was no major corruption charge against any BJP leader in these 10 years,” said a political analyst.
If the trends hold in Haryana, the BJP’s decision to replace sitting chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar with Nayab Singh Saini, an OBC leader, this March appears to have worked. In the same vein, in Uttarakhand in 2022, the BJP brought in Pushkar Singh Dhami six months before polls whereas the Congress banked on its old guard Harish Rawat, a move that helped the former buck anti-incumbency.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
