The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday ended the era of bipolar electoral contests between the Congress and the Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana by a deceptively simple strategy of consolidating the non-Jat votes in the State.
Both the Congress and INLD have, for decades, focused on the dominant Jats who constitute about 27 per cent of the electorate in Haryana. In this election, while the Congress was suffering from a two-term anti-incumbency and the Om Prakash Chautala-led INLD used his conviction and incarceration in a teacher recruitment scam as an electoral plank.
The BJP focused on cobbling together all other castes — the Dalits, who constitute about 19 per cent of the electorate, along with Brahmins, Banias, Gujjars and Yadavs. Combined with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's successful campaign and continuing electoral appeal, the BJP notched up 47 seats without even projecting a chief ministerial candidate. The Congress, which has been ruling the State for ten years, has now slipped to the third position. While most of its leaders won, Vandana Sharma, sister of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, could not make it to the Assembly. She lost to an independent candidate.
The BJP repeated the performance in the Lok Sabha elections — where it had won seven out of the 10 seats in the State. The Congress lost its base among Dalits because of the poor treatment meted out its Dalit leaders such as Kumari Selja and Ashok Tanwar. The Congress is not even in a position to claim the Opposition leader’s space.
The party president Amit Shah’s decision to go alone in the State has paid back. The BJP contested the Assembly elections for the first time without an alliance. In a multi-cornered fight, it was easy for the BJP to consolidate the inroads it had made into the State.