Did Hooda Repeat Kamal Nath’s Mistakes? Is His Veto to Blame for Congress’s Loss?

Haryana Election 2024: The picture of the results of the Haryana assembly elections has become clear. According to the final results, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has secured 48 seats, while the Congress has been limited to only 37. With this results across 90 seats, the Bharatiya Janata Party has been moved towards the power for the third time, while the Congress has lagged behind.

According to the Election Commission, the BJP has obtained 39.82 percent of the votes, Congress 39.65 percent, AAP 1.76 percent, JJP 0.89 percent, and ILD 4.32 percent. This figure clearly shows that there is not much difference between the votes of the BJP and Congress. In such a situation, had the India Alliance contested unitedly, a significant difference could have been observed in the results according to these seats.

Understand it this way, according to vote percentage, if we add 39.65% (Congress) and 1.65% (AAP), then it becomes a total of 41%. The difference between this figure as compared to BJP is 1.89%. 

There are 28 seats where Congress lost by a margin of less than 5,000 votes 

It is also worth noting here that in the counting of votes in the Haryana assembly elections, there are about 28 such seats where the difference between the BJP and Congress candidates is only 5,000 or less votes. In this situation, if the Aam Aadmi Party had entered the fray along with the Congress, it could have had a different impact on the result.

So did Hooda make the same mistake as Kamal Nath?

Political expert Amit Kumar says that Rahul Gandhi wanted to enter the fray in the last phase of Haryana assembly elections by forming an alliance with Aam Aadmi Party. But according to sources, the Congress-AAP alliance could not happen due to the lack of confidence of former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupendra Singh Hooda and his son Deependra Singh Hooda. Even during the campaign, when Kejriwal came out of jail, there was a lot of discussion in the political corridors that the alliance of Congress and Aam Aadmi Party is almost certain, but Hooda was not ready for this.

Something similar happened in the Madhya Pradesh elections as well. At that time, Kamal Nath, out of overconfidence, refused to contest the elections with the SP. Not only this, Kamal Nath also gave the controversial statement about Akhilesh-Vakhilesh at that time. 

However, in this election, the difference in vote percentage between Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party in Madhya Pradesh was so much that even with the support of SP, Congress could not win, but in Madhya Pradesh, BJP got 48.55 percent votes and Congress got 40.40 percent votes.

Whereas after contesting elections on only 72 seats, Samajwadi Party got 46% votes. This is the reason why even this low vote percentage of SP is considered to be decent. If Congress and SP had contested together in this election, there were chances of increase in vote percentage. If they contest elections separately, many voters do not vote for both the parties, they are forced to give their vote to a third party. 

5 Main Reasons for this Record Victory of BJP

1- Making Saini the CM in place of Khattar

Manohar Lal Khattar, who was the Chief Minister of Haryana for about 9.5 years, was replaced by Nayab Singh Saini 6 months before the election. This move by the BJP attracted the OBC community that constitutes 44% of the state’s population. Khattar also faced an anti-incumbency wave due to the farmers’ agitation and the protest by women wrestlers. Apart from this, Khattar was relatively absent from the election campaign.

2- Change of candidates 

BJP changed candidates on 25 seats, out of which 16 candidates are in a position to win or lead. Out of a total of 90 seats, 49 have been won, which is about 56%. At the same time, the success rate of 16 out of the 25 candidates who changed tickets is 67%, which proves that this step of BJP was beneficial.

3- Weakening of JJP’s support base

In 2019, JJP won 10 seats but its influence will end in 2024. BJP and Congress have made gains on JJP’s seats, where BJP has won 4 seats. JJP’s decision to contest separately in 2024 after forming an alliance with BJP in 2019 has proved beneficial for BJP.

4- Successful use of Jat vs non-Jat strategy

The Jat community is the largest among the 36 communities in Haryana, with a population of 27%. The BJP focused on non-Jat voters and was successful in bringing Brahmin, Punjabi, Bania and Rajput communities to its side. Efforts were also made to strengthen the backward and Dalit vote bank, which led to success this time as well, like the 2014 and 2019 elections.

5- Number of rallies of BJP compared to Congress

The number of rallies of BJP was more than that of Congress, where BJP held 150 rallies, Congress held only 70 meetings. BJP’s rallies included major rallies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah . On the other hand, Congress held only 70 meetings, in which Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi had limited participation. BJP’s more rallies in this election gave them a clear edge over Congress.

Results of last two elections in Haryana 

2019 Assembly Elections

• Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP): BJP formed the government by winning 40 out of 90 seats.  
• Congress: Congress won 31 seats, the party’s vote share at that time was 28 percent. 
• JJP: JJP won 10 seats and the party had formed an alliance with BJP to form the government. 
• Other parties: Other smaller parties together won some seats, but their impact was limited.

2014 Assembly Elections 

• BJP won 47 seats. While the party’s vote share was 33.2%. 
• INLD had won 19 seats. The vote share of this party was 24.01%. 
• Congress had got 15 seats while its vote share was 20.06 percent. 
• Independents won 5 seats and their vote share was 10.06%. 

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