Amitabh Shukla | Chandigarh
For the first time ever since the
BJP was born in 1980, Haryana wrote a new political script for the party on
Friday. As the results tumbled out from the EVMs, BJP dumped both the Congress
and the INLD led by the Chautala family, winning seven of the 10 seats in the
State, its best ever performance.
The Narendra Modi Tsunami, which
was seen all over the country, manifested itself in Haryana as well with all
its magnificence with the party not only gaining a foothold in the State which
neighbours, the national Capital, but striking deep roots. The victory is all
the more sweet for BJP as it never had a strong leader in the State nor has it
got an identifiable face for the party. “It was all due to the effort of the
organisation, RSS, anti-incumbency and anger against Congress Governments in
the State and the Centre,” a BJP leader said here.
BJP had always banked on
alliances in the State to get a foothold. Earlier, it was Bansi Lal and
Chaudhary Devi Lal and later Om Prakash Chautala with whom the party allied in
Haryana. This time too, the party was in alliance with the Kuldeep Bishnoi-led
Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC). Ironically, HJC lost all the two seats it
contested — Hisar and Sirsa. Bishnoi, the sitting MP from Hisar himself lost
the poll to 26-year-old Dushyant Chautala and also resigned as president of his
party.
Modi wave in Haryana demolished
the caste equations completely as BJP got votes all across the State, cutting
caste divide. BJP-HJC alliance was billed as a non Jat platform as both the
Congress and INLD are led by Jats. But the party managed to make massive
inroads not only amongst the non-Jat community but even in the Jat dominated
seats of Sonipat and Bhiwani-Mahendragarh.
Congress won only the Jat bastion
of Rohtak from where Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s son Deepinder
contested and made a hatrick of wins. This is considered a pocket borough of
the Hooda family. For the Chief Minister, the result is nothing sort of a major
setback as it came five months before the Assembly polls. The State goes to
polls in October and given the trend in the Lok Sabha polls, BJP is set to form
the next Government.
The challenge before the BJP now
would be to take a call on it alliance with HJC. The Bishnoi led party does not
have an influence beyond 2-3 Assembly seats in Haryana even though it will
contest 45 of the 90 seats in the Assembly. BJP sources in Haryana say there
could be a rethink on the alliance as it has failed to click.
BJP gained in Haryana as there
was a political vacuum in the State with both the ruling Congress and
Opposition INLD embroiled in high-profile corruption cases. While Hooda was
accused of favouring Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Congress president Sonia
Gandhi and also hounding honest officials, the INLD had its own problems. The
father-son duo of OP Chautala and Ajay Chautala are serving ten year jail term
for teachers’ recruitment scam. With both the ruling party and the opposition
discredited, BJP made an impressive mark in the polls so much so that though it
has only three MLAs from the State, now it will have seven MPs. Aam Aadmi Party
failed to make its presence felt in the state despite its top leaders Arvind
Kejriwal and Yogendra Yadav hailing from the state. Yadav even lost his
security deposit from Gurgaon.
Almost every BJP leader in the
State attributed the success to Narendra Modi and linked it with the
countrywide trend. Some Congress leaders, on the other hand, blamed Hooda’s
non-performance in his second term, the perception that there was criminalisation
of politics, rising expectations and of course all those factors which made BJP
win at the national level.
From the perspective of the
State, many in Haryana see the results only as a semi-final as for them, it
will be the Assembly elections which will be the main final, In the next 2-3
months, in the run up to the Assembly polls, great churning is expected to take
place in Haryana politics with BJP on the swing and Congress on a decline. (May 17, 2014)
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