Close contest on 21 seats may lead Haryana to hung House
WHILE PM MODI IS NOT VULNERABLE TO ANTI-INCUMBENCY, AT ALL-INDIA LEVEL, THE BJP CANNOTT TAKE PRO-INCUMBENCY FOR GRANTED
CHANDIGARH: Haryana appeared to be headed for a hung assembly, counting of votes showed on Thursday, with 21 constituencies seeing a close fight with leads lower than 5% as of 4pm.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won all 10 Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. All major exit polls, with the exception of the India Today-axis one, gave more than 70 out of the 90 assembly constituencies (ACS) to the BJP. After counting of around 40% of the votes, the BJP and the Congress seem to be locked in a close contest; the BJP led in 38 ACS, the Congress in 32. With the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) leading in another 12 ACS, Haryana appears to be heading towards a hung assembly.
The fledgling Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) of former Hisar member of Parliament, Dushyant Singh Chautala, could prove to be the kingmaker if the ruling BJP in Haryana falls short of a simple majority.
The state has 90 assembly ACS in all — making the target mark 4 6 — and r esults had been declared for 31 ACS by 4 pm. The BJP, Congress and Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) have won 13, 10 and 5 of these ACS respectively.
Counting is still going on in the other 59 ACS. Of these 59, the BJP, Congress and the JJP are leading in 26, 22 and 5 ACS. In 32 out of these 59 ACS, the leading candidate had a margin of less than 10% votes at 4 pm. On 21 ACS the lead is less than 5%. There are 4 ACS — Radaur, Assandh, Badkhal and Hodal — where the lead between the first and second position candidates is less than 1%.
Among the 32 ACS where the lead is less than 10%, the BJP is leading 14, and the Congress is ahead in 12. Among the 21 ACS where the lead is less than 5%, the BJP and the Congress are leading in 8 and 10 ACS. Among the four ACS, where the victory margin is less than 1%, the BJP is leading three and the Congress is ahead in one.
Almost 94% of the votes have been counted in Haryana by 4 pm. Because Ac-wise voting figures are not available, it is not possible to find out how many votes are to be counted in the ACS with narrow leads. These numbers suggest that until every vote has been counted, the final tally and hence government formation prospects of the BJP and the Congress will remain uncertain in Haryana.
This also suggests that even though Narendra Modi is not vulnerable to anti-incumbency, at the all-india level, BJP state governments cannot take pro-incumbency for granted.
The Congress, on the other hand, has increased its 2014 assembly vote share by around 9 percentage points to 29%, while the combined vote share of the JJP and Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) has come down by around 7 percentage points.
The fledgling JJP of former Hisar member of Parliament, Dushyant Singh Chautala, could prove to be the kingmaker if the ruling BJP in Haryana falls short of a simple majority.
The consolidation of opposition votes in Haryana cannot be understood without the role of the Jat vote, which might have consolidated behind the Congress in a much bigger way than in the 2014 Lok Sabha and assembly elections and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.