Sainisational hat-trick, Hooda left stunned

Defeating anti-incumbency, the BJP created history by winning a third consecutive election and riding to power in Haryana on the OBC and Dalit votes. The BJP won the Haryana mandate under caretaker Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini’s leadership with a clear majority, getting 48 of 90 seats against the majority-mark of 46 seats.Seen as “favourites” in all the exit polls, the faction-ridden Congress failed to make the cut and ended up with 37 seats in its kitty. This is more than 31 seats it won in the last election, but the party fell way short of the majority mark in the Haryana Vidhan Sabha.Editorial: Against all oddsThough the Jats did come together to consolidate behind the former Leader of Opposition, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, the narrative was so overwhelming that it polarised the non-Jats, including the Scheduled Castes and the OBCs, in favour of the BJP. Also, the saffron party managed to breach Hooda’s stronghold Sonepat (district), where the BJP won four of the six seats. The election stood polarised along the usual Jat and non-Jat lines, limiting the prospects of the Congress. The BJP netted its highest-ever vote share of 39.94 per cent in Assembly elections while the Congress got a vote share of 39.09 per cent.A number of factors were at play behind the BJP’s spectacular win such as parole for dera chief and rape and murder convict Gurmeet Ram Rahim just days ahead of polling, former Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s strategising from behind the scenes and Home Minister Amit Shah taking the reins of the campaign in his own hands to turn around the party’s fortunes.The faction-ridden Congress paid for “upsetting” Sirsa MP Kumari Selja, the party’s Dalit face in this election, considered Hooda’s show after he got a lion’s share during ticket distribution. Selja chose to stay away from campaigning, indicating all was not well within the party. While three rebels —- India’s richest woman and Jindal group chairperson Savitri Jindal (of the BJP from Hisar), Devinder Kadyan (of the BJP from Gannaur), Rajesh Joon (of the Congress from Bahadurgarh) — won as Independents, the others cut into the votes of their parent parties, resulting in upsetting the calculations. Nearly 11.64 per cent vote share went to the Independents.The regional parties, Indian National Lok Dal-BSP and the Jannayak Janta Party-Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) combine as also the AAP did not find favour with the voters, resulting in a direct election at a majority of the seats. These parties played spoilers for the two national parties in the fray, impacting the final result of a few seats, including Yamunanagar, Narwana and Ateli.The INLD managed to get two seats (Rania and Dabwali) but the party’s national general secretary and the CM face of the INLD-BSP alliance, Abhay Chautala, lost from Ellenabad to Congress candidate Bharat Singh Beniwal by 15,000 votes. However, his son, Arjun, won from Rania while Aditya Devilal, his cousin, emerged victorious from Dabwali.INLD’s splinter group JJP was decimated and its leader and former Deputy CM, Dushyant Chautala, polled only 7,950 votes, finishing a poor fifth from Uchana Kalan. He is likely to lose his security deposit. While the INLD had a vote share of 4.14 per cent, the JJP got .90 per cent vote share.The Aam Aadmi Party failed to open its account in Haryana yet again despite getting support from the party’s leadership and governments on either side of Haryana — in Delhi and in Punjab. The party ended up with 1.79 per cent vote share only.Among the major upsets for the BJP, the outgoing Speaker of the Haryana Vidhan Sabha, Gian Chand Gupta, lost to Congress’ Chander Mohan from Panchkula, five prominent ministers in the Saini government — Kanwar Pal Gujjar (Jagadhri), JP Dalal (Loharu), Kamal Gupta (Hisar) and Assem Goyal (Ambala city), Sanjay Singh (Nuh) —- as also senior Jat leaders Capt Abhimayu and OP Dhankar lost the election which saw fortunes fluctuating for the candidates through the counting which began at 8 am.From Adampur, Bhavya Bishnoi, grandson of late Chief Minister Bhajan Lal, could not hold on to his family seat. He was defeated by former IAS officer Chander Prakash of the Congress. However, Rajya Sabha MP Kiran Choudhry’s daughter and former MP, Shruti, won from the family seat of Tosham.For the Congress, Nuh gave a resounding mandate to the party, the first-timers who won include Olympian wrestler Vinesh Phogat from Julana, Aditya Surjewala from Kaithal, Vikas Saharan from Kalayat. While Congress’ Mamman Khan won the Ferozpur Jhirka seat with the highest margin of 98,441 votes, the party’s candidate from Uchana Kalan, Brijendra Singh, a former MP and son of former Union minister Birender Singh, lost his seat by the narrowest margin of 32 votes.Thirteen women legislators, which constitute over 14 per cent of the House strength, have made it to the 15th Haryana Assembly. Five women MLAs belong to the BJP, seven to the Congress while business woman and Jindal group chairperson Savitri Jindal has been elected as an Independent MLA. This is only the second time that the House will have 13 women legislators, the last being in 2014.

Sainisational hat-trick, Hooda left stunned

Geetanjali Gayatri

Tribune News Service