For the 90-member Haryana Assembly which goes to polls on Saturday, a bipolar contest has emerged between the incumbent BJP and the Congress. Regional parties and alliances — including former Deputy Chief Minister in the BJP government Dushyant Chautala’s Jannanayak Janata Party (JJP) which has tied up with Chandrashekhar Azad’s Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram); the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) which has a tie up with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP); besides the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Communist Party of India (Marxist) — have not really made much headway in this election; it is entirely split between the BJP and the Congress.
The BJP is defending its 10-year rule with a fresh face in Nayab Singh Saini as the Chief Minister, a manoeuvre attempted before the Lok Sabha elections to dilute the rumblings of anti-incumbency associated with former CM Manohar Lal Khattar. Saini carries no baggage and symbolises the BJP’s strategy to consolidate the OBC vote which comprises roughly one-third of the electorate in the State. However, it worked only partially in the Lok Sabha elections where, after the sweep of all the 10 parliamentary seats in the 2019 elections, the BJP came down to five seats in this year’s general elections.
An important statistic in understanding the ongoing poll battle in Haryana is that when the BJP won 10 Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 general elections, it had led in a staggering 79 Assembly segments out of the total 90. But just five months later, during the 2019 assembly polls, this tally came down and the BJP could secure only 40 seats, six short of the majority mark. It made up the shortfall by tying up with the JJP which won 10 seats in the 2019 Assembly polls. This time, in the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP won five parliamentary seats and led in 42 Assembly segments.
The situation on the ground is challenging for the ruling party. There are three dominant issues in the Haryana elections — Kisan (farmer), Jawan (soldier) and pehelwan (wrestlers). The State was the epicentre of the year-long farmers’ movement in 2020-21 and another wave recently when the farmers gathered at the Shambhu border between Punjab and Haryana, demanding legalised MSP. Manohar Lal Khattar described them as “fake” farmers out to destabilise the BJP, a remark that has hurt sentiments in Haryana. The Agniveer scheme is also a burning topic in a State which has just over 2 per cent of India’s population but comprises a major chunk of the Army’s ground force. The scheme is unpopular among the youth which looks at the Army as a provider of permanent jobs. Finally, there is much heartburn in the State against the BJP’s inaction vis-a-vis its former MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh who, as president of the Wrestling Federation of India, was accused by women wrestlers of sexual harassment. The BJP is feeling the heat in Haryana — notwithstanding the infighting inCongress.