Haryana cliffhanger: BJP, Congress bag 5 each

Geetanjali Gayatri

Chandigarh, June 4

In an election that went down to the wire, the ruling BJP and a resurgent Congress ended up with five seats each of the 10 Lok Sabha constituencies in Haryana. The two regional parties — the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) — were decimated and its candidates came a poor third, losing even their security deposits at most seats, in an election that boiled down to a direct contest between the BJP and the Congress.

All members of Chautala family defeated

All members of the Chautala clan in the fray faced defeat. BJP’s Ranjit Singh Chautala, JJP’s Naina Chautala, and INLD’s Abhay Singh Chautala and Sunaina Chautala ended up biting the dust. Some of them even lost their security deposit.

The Aam Aadmi Party put up a stiff challenge for the BJP from Kurukshetra. It was the only seat it contested as a partner of the INDIA bloc. Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini won the Karnal Assembly bypoll with 95,004 votes, defeating Trilochan Singh of the Congress by a margin of 41,540 votes to retain the “CM city” tag for Karnal.

The BJP vote share dropped by nearly 12 per cent to 46.11 per cent, the Congress vote share increased by 15.7 per cent, going up from 28.42 to 43.67 per cent even though it contested nine seats in the election. Though AAP contested from Kurukshetra only, its vote share increased from 0.36 per cent in 2019 to 3.94 per cent. The INLD, which contested seven seats, and the JJP, which fielded candidates from all 10 seats, got a vote share of 1.74 per cent and 0.87 per cent, respectively.

BJP’s Rao Inderjit Singh won for the sixth time in a very close contest with actor-turned-politician Raj Babbar by over 75,079 votes while former Chief Minister Bhupinder Hooda’s son and Congress candidate from Rohtak, Deepender Hooda, won with the highest margin of 3,45,298 lakh votes, followed by Kumari Selja who won the Sirsa seat with a margin of 2,68,497 votes. Khattar won the Karnal seat with a margin of 2,32,967 lakh votes.

While BJP leaders blamed anti-incumbency for the setback, they maintained that it had been successfully countered as the party was able to retain five seats. Congress leaders claimed there was a wave in its favour given the lack of jobs, inflation and faulty policies of the BJP.

All members of the Chautala clan in the fray faced defeat. BJP’s Ranjit Chautala, JJP’s Naina Chautala, and INLD’s Abhay Singh Chautala and Sunaina Chautala lost.

It was a double whammy for Ranjit Chautala, an Indpendent MLA, who joined the BJP ahead of the elections. He had resigned from the Vidhan Sabha and also lost from the Hisar seat. MLA Abhay Chautala, son of ex-CM OP Chautala, MLA Naina Chautala and INLD candidate Sunaina Chautala, daughters-in-law of the Chautala clan, too, fared badly in the election.