The just-concluded Lok Sabha elections in the state have many firsts.

A history of sorts was created in Haryana when the Congress, led by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, retained its previous tally of nine Lok Sabha seats. Before that no ruling party had been able to achieve this feat in the state ever. The Haryana electorate is known to be highly volatile. If in one election it would give all seats to one party, in the next the same party would be reduced to nil.

Hooda cannot be denied the credit for this remarkable win of his party, despite several constraints. The elections saw the BSP taking away a considerable chunk of the Congress vote. In many constituencies like Bhiwani-Mahendragarh, Gurgaon and Faridabad, party nominees had to face open sabotage at the hands of the party MLAs. Still these seats were won by the Congress. In fact, there was hardly a constituency where Congressmen were not working against the party nominees.

It is also for the first time that two women MPs from the state will sit in the Lok Sabha.

The elections saw a complete rout of the INLD-BJP alliance. It has happened for the first time that the alliance between these two parties have drawn a blank. They had always managed some seats in the state whenever they fought together. The alliance, which was not approved by the rank and file of the two parties earlier, has been rejected by the electorate also. This may lead to realignment of non-Congress political forces in the state soon. The Assembly elections, scheduled for February next, may be held earlier because the Congress may not be charitable enough to the Opposition not to cash in on its stupendous success in the Lok Sabha elections.

The humiliation for the INLD is further compounded by the fact that its vote percentage, which was second to the Congress in 2004, has fallen to the third place, behind, of all parties, the BSP.

The BSP has not only increased its share in the state vote bank from 4.98 per cent to 15.73 per cent this year, it has also managed to wrest the second slot from the BJP in Gurgaon and Karnal. The INLD’s share is 15.68 per cent against 22.43 per cent it had in 2004. The vote percentage of the BJP and the HJC is 12.09 and 9.89, respectively.

The win has refuted HJC leader Kuldeep Bishnoi’s claim that in 2004 and 2005, the people had voted for the Congress to make his father Bhajan Lal the Chief Minister of the state. It will also silence critics of Hooda who say that his influence was confined to the old Rohtak district and not to the non-Jat belt of the state. Though by winning a seat in the non-Jat belt of the state during the three Assembly byelections held last year, Hooda had answered his critics, the present victory should be a convincing reply to his critics. The party candidates got support from almost all sections of society, cutting across caste lines.

During the campaigning it was obvious that rather than anti-incumbency against the government, the people had still not forgiven the INLD, for its alleged misdeeds when it was in power before 2005.

Former political adviser to Hooda, Prof Virender said the “padyatra” undertaken by INLD secretary-general Ajay Singh Chautala before the Lok Sabha elections did immense good to the Congress. During the “padyatra”, people of the state came across the same faces, towards whom they were allergic. He claimed that the Congress lost Hisar because the voters there gave a “mercy chance” to an old man, contesting perhaps his last election.

Naresh Kadyan,
OIPA - http://www.oipa.org
Representative for INDIA,
- http://www.oipa.org/oipa/news/oipaindia.html
- http://www.oipa.org/oipaindia.html
- http://www.oipa.org/OIPA%20INDIA/hunting.html
- http://www.pfaharyana.in
- http://nareshkadyan.blogspot.com/
- http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/01/420777.html
Mobile - +91-9813010595
- +91- 9313312099
My book - http://nareshkadyanbook.blogspot.com/