Haryana: The battle of singles

Himanshu Shekhar

The picture for assembly elections in Haryana is clear, as the key national parties including the BJP and Congress have announced that they would be going it alone. To start with, the Bhupinder Singh Hooda-led Congress government declared an early election and dissolved the 90-seat assembly in August. The move caught the opposition parties by surprise and cautioned smaller players and disgruntled rebels. The odds this time are again tilted in favour of the Congress after the main opposition party- the INLD- got a snub from BJP, which decided to break away from Om Prakash Chautala. BJP’s decision to go it alone was largely a fallout of its debacle in the Lok Sabha polls, in which Congress romped home with nine out of ten seats in the state, leaving the principal opposition party no alternative but to snap ties with Chautala. “We have broken our tie-up with INLD and would go for the forthcoming assembly polls alone,” Vijay Goel, BJP general secretary in charge of the party’s Haryana affairs, told us while announcing the decision in August itself. “This partnership has broken, not because of us, but due to the rigid approach of INLD over sharing of seats. Our party workers were not happy with the goings on in the coalition,” Goel had remarked. BJP’s decision to go it alone was definitely prompted by the 7% negative swing in vote percentage during the Lok Sabha elections against Chautala’s INLD, an occurrence which highlighted the Haryana stalwart’s fading charm and charisma. But if reports are to be believed, senior BJP leader and in-charge of election campaign, Arun Jaitley has ensured that ground level tie-ups with Independents, who have the winning potential, are worked out and regional forces are kept in loop for any post poll alliance. A Confident Congress The ruling Congress on the other hand is going ahead with confidence after its humongous success in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections. If we analyse the results of Lok Sabha seats from Haryana, Congress is expected to lead in as many as 59 assembly seats, way ahead of its rivals. However, the INLD-BJP alliance is expected to lead in 7 places each, while Mayawati’s BSP would be a gainer in 8 assembly seats as the party witnessed a rise in its vote percentage from 4.98% in 2004 to 15.73% in general elections earlier this year. What is worth a mention here is that there was a dip in Congress’ vote percentage in May general elections, as it went down from 42.13% to 41.46%. But still it was a leader, and that encouraged the Hooda government to go in for early elections. With the trend suggesting that it would be difficult to beat the ruling party alone, BJP for once tried its best to set up an alliance with HJC after its fall out with Bahujan Samaj Party and INLD. But talks failed. However, BJP sources claim the party would support Bhajan Lal’s most potent candidates. The Congress party, which had pocketed 67 seats in the last assembly elections, would hope that they would survive the anti-incumbency factor and make considerable inroads into Bhajan Lal’s boroughs of influence and make up for the losses they may face because of the rising dark horse- the BSP. Bhajan Lal, on the other hand, can be the ultimate party spoiler for the Congress if the disgruntled Ahir community sides with him. Hooda, meanwhile, has ensured that his popular schemes like electricity-fee waiver in Jat dominated areas give him an early edge and polarization against BSP’s Dalit plank would only help the Haryana CM. With the game set out clear in Haryana, as to who is against whom, the major fight will surely be between, Congress, HJC, INLD, BJP and BSP. The disgruntled Independents would leave no stone unturned in making the contest interesting, but Congress, for the moment, seems to have the upper hand. If there is something that would make a real impact on October 22, when the votes will be counted, it would be the ‘Hooda Factor’. Whether luck will smile on Hooda is something we will have to wait and watch for.