INLD-BJP win all Haryana seats
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Oct 6 — The Vajpayee-Chautala magic has worked in Haryana. It is a clean sweep for the INLD-BJP combine. The Congress, the HVP and the BSP have been routed. Invincible Bhajan Lal suffered the first electoral defeat of his over 30-year-long political career. State Congress chief Bhupinder Singh Hooda lost the thrice held seat of Rohtak to a political novice by a huge margin of 1,44,693 votes.

Another Haryana Congress stalwart, Mr Birinder Singh, lost the Hisar seat to Mr Surinder Singh Barwala (INLD) by over 1.60 lakh votes.

A war-widow, Dr (Mrs) Sudha Yadav (BJP) humbled Mr Inderjit Singh, a son of the Raja of Ahirwal, Mr Birendra Singh, in Mehandragarh by 1,38,541 votes.

Mr Bhajan Lal lost the Karnal seat to Mr I.D. Swami (BJP), a former IAS officer, by a margin of 1,47,577 votes. Mr Bhajan Lal had defeated Mr Swami in 1998 by about 50,000 votes.

Mr Hooda lost the Rohtak seat to Capt Inder Singh (INLD) by a margin of 1,44,693. He had the consolation that his margin of defeat was slightly less than that of Mr Bhajan Lal. 

Dr Sushil Kumar Indora of the INLD retained the Sirsa (Reserved) constituency by a margin of 221,654 votes. Dr Indora polled 421,199 votes against 199,545 votes polled by his nearest Congress rival, Mr Om Prakash Keharwala.

Mr Krishan Singh Sangwan of the BJP won the Sonepat seat by a huge margin of 2.66 lakh votes, defeating the veteran Congress leader, Mr Chiranji Lal Sharma.

Noted industrialist-turned-politician, Mr O.P. Jindal, who shifted from the HVP to the Congress, lost the Kurukshetra seat to the sitting INLD M.P., Mrs Kailasho Saini, by 1,63610 votes. Mr Jindal had won this seat in 1996 on the HVP ticket but had shifted to Hisar in 1998.

The All-India general secretary of the BJP Scheduled Castes Morcha, Mr Rattan Lal Kataria, who was considered to be a non-starter, humbled Mr Phool Chand Mullana of the Congress by 1,24,478 Ambala in votes. The BSP sitting M.P., Mr Aman Kumar Nagra, came a poor third with a tally of 83,644 votes.

Mr Ajay Chautala, son of the Chief Minister, Mr Om Prakash Chautala, won the Bhiwani seat, which was considered to the pocket borough of former Chief Minister, Bansi Lal, by an impressive margin of 2,03,989 votes. Ajay had lost this seat last year to Mr Surender Singh, son of Mr Bansi Lal, by about nine thousand votes. Ajay avenged his defeat handsomely this year.

The Meo-dominated seat of Faridabad, considered to be the weakest seat of the NDA in Haryana, was retained by Mr Ram Chander Bainda of the BJP by a margin of 34,248 votes over Mr Zakir Hussain of the Congress. Zakir is a son of a veteran Meo leader, Mr Tayab Hussain, who is a Minister in Rajasthan.

The most humiliating aspect of the defeat for the Congress was the fact that it trailed in all the 54 assembly segments, except the three Meo-dominated segments, of Rohtak, Karnal, Sonepat, Hisar, Ambala and Faridabad Lok Sabha seats. The Congress led in Ferozepur Jhirka, Nuh and Taoru assembly segments only. The assembly segment wise break-up for the other Lok Sabha seats was not available.

Mr Hooda lost not only in his former Assembly segment of Kiloi but also in his native village of Sanghi by over 200 votes.

Mr Chautala thanked the people of Haryana for expressing their confidence in the leadership of Mr Vajpayee and for putting their faith in the policies of Mr Devi Lal.

The shell-shocked Haryana Congress, which did react to the hike in the price of diesel, did not react to its humiliating defeat in the state, though a senior party leader, Mr Shamsher Singh Surjewala, said the margin of defeat of the Congress candidates showed that the INLD workers had silently captured booths in the afternoon of the polling day.

A senior Congress leader, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, however, told a TV channel that the Congress had to pay a heavy price for supporting the Bansi Lal Government after the BJP withdrew its support to it.

Certain Congress leaders, who did not want to be identified, said the party should not have withdrawn its support to the Bansi Government after having once supported it. If Mr Chautala had not become the Chief Minister, the Congress would not have met this nerve-racking fate, they said.

However, Mr Chautala claimed that if Mr Bansi Lal had continued in power with the Congress support, the victory margins of the NDA candidates would have been bigger than what they were now.