The Tribune Analysis: Reputation on line for Manohar Lal Khattar, Nayab Singh Saini as Bhupinder Singh Hooda looks to bounce back

Tribune News Service

Pradeep Sharma

Chandigarh, May 25

The Lok Sabha election results of Haryana will set the tone for the October Assembly election. The results would go a long way in deciding the political fortunes of the three major political players of Haryana—the BJP, the Congress and the JJP—and their leaders, including Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini and former CM Manohar Lal Khattar, Bhupinder Singh and Dushyant Chautala.

Will make or break political bigwigs

The Lok Sabha election results will impact the forthcoming Assembly poll. The performance by different parties will build a political narrative around which the Assembly elections will be fought later this year. The results will make or break the reputations of many political bigwigs. Kushal Pal, Political analyst

The lower voter turnout should come as a relief for the BJP, which is hoping that consolidation of its traditional vote bank—comprising mainly non-Jats and urban votes—would translate into an impressive performance which could be replicated in the forthcoming Assembly election.

The results would also put the reputations of BJP stalwarts Khattar and Saini at stake as the duo will have to shoulder the blame in case of poor performance by the saffron party in the backdrop of anti-incumbency against the party.

The results would also put to test BJP’s social engineering—consolidating anti-Jats votes comprising OBCs, upper castes and Dalits—against the dominant community Jats (who comprise over 25% of the state’s population). This social engineering seems to have paid rich dividends to the party in the last two Assembly and parliamentary elections.

The strategy resulted in the party winning seven Lok Sabha seats in 2014 and 10 seats in the 2019 parliamentary elections, besides forming government in the state in 2014 and 2019 Assembly elections.

For Hooda, who emerged as the tallest Jat leader in the wake of the disintegration of the INLD and the JJP sticking to alliance with the BJP even after the 2020-21 farmers’ protests and women wrestlers’ stir, it will be a challenge to bounce back on Haryana’s political landscape.

The results will determine whether the two-time CM Hooda, who was virtually given a free hand in the selection of the party candidates, except Selja from Sirsa, has been able to consolidate the Jat vote bank in Congress’ favour and overcome the Modi factor. In the last two elections, the Congress has been losing on account of the division of Jats votes among the Congress, the INLD and the JJP (in the 2019 elections).

Hooda will also have to overcome a challenge from the ‘SRK’ group (Selja, Randeep Surjewala and Kiran Chaudhry) within the Congress. The SRK group was virtually sidelined in the selection of the Congress Lok Sabha candidates, though Selja was nominated as a candidate from Sirsa.

Meanwhile, a win for Selja from Sirsa would give a shot in the arm to the anti-Hooda faction in the party, keeping its hopes alive of a say in the selection of candidates for the Assembly poll. The win for Selja in Sirsa will also make Congress’ presence felt in Chautala’s stronghold.

“The results will definitely impact the forthcoming Assembly election. The performance by different parties in the Lok Sabha poll will build a political narrative around which the Assembly election will be fought later this year. The results will make or break the reputations of many political bigwigs,” said Kushal Pal, a political analyst and Principal of Indira Gandhi National College, Ladwa (Kurukshetra).

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