Some relief for BJP

The results of the local body elections have come as a relief for the ruling BJP in Haryana less than a year before the bigger battles of the Assembly and the Lok Sabha. The saffron party, which is licking its wounds after the stunning reversals in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, finally has something to cheer about, albeit on a smaller scale. The municipal corporations of Hisar, Karnal, Panipat, Rohtak and Yamunanagar had gone to the polls on December 16, along with the municipal committees of Jakhal Mandi (Fatehabad) and Pundri (Kaithal). In a clean sweep, all mayoral candidates of the BJP were elected directly.

Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar earned bragging rights particularly from his home turf Karnal, where party candidate Renu Bala Gupta defeated Independent nominee Asha Wadhwa by over 9,000 votes. In this prestigious contest, Wadhwa had received support both from the Indian National Lok Dal-Bahujan Samaj Party (INLD-BSP) alliance and the Congress. The latter, which had lost power in Haryana in 2014 after a nine-year rule, preferred not to contest on its own symbol.

Civic body elections are usually won by the ruling party in the state. During campaigning, it is drilled into the voters’ minds that funds will flow and development works will be completed only if the same outfit calls the shots in the MC House and the Vidhan Sabha. In the 2013 civic polls, Independents, mostly backed by then ruling Congress, had grabbed the lion’s share of the wards in seven municipal corporations. The BJP had finished a distant second, followed by the INLD. Despite Wednesday’s emphatic victory, the BJP should resist the temptation of extrapolating the results to next year’s Assembly and parliamentary elections. After a crushing defeat in the 2013 MC battle, the party had bounced back the following year, when the stakes were far higher. The Modi wave, coupled with strong anti-incumbency, had done the trick. With the Congress making a dramatic comeback recently in three states in the Hindi belt — and the 2014 wave showing signs of waning — Khattar and Co can afford to be complacent only at their peril.