In Haryana, Opposition infighting may help BJP
CHANDIGARH:BUOYED by its sweep of this summer’s Lok Sabha elections in Haryana, the state’s ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) is confident about its prospects in the assembly polls scheduled on Saturday for October 21.
The BJP, which formed the government on its own for the first time in Haryana in 2014, riding the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, appears to have a decisive edge over its rivals after the parliamentary polls. The saffron party not only pocketed all 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana, it won nine of them with hefty margins in the range of 160,000-650,000 votes, and a vote share of 58 %.
It has been aided by an Opposition that is plagued by infighting and dwindling vote bases. polarisation of the electorate on caste and community lines since all the MCS where the BJP won, has a significant Punjabi and Vaishya community bases.
While in the 2014 assembly polls, the saffron party had done well in the northern districts of Yamunanagar, Karnal, Panipat, Kurukshetra, Panchkula and Ambala by registering wins in 21 of the 23 seats, primarily due to the overwhelming support of non-jats, in the 2018 polls to urban bodies, the BJP benefitted from the consolidation of nonjats in Rohtak and Hisar.
A month later, in January, the BJP registered an emphatic victory in the Jind assembly bypoll, a contest in which two Jat candidates from rival parties faced off with BJP’S Krishan Middha, who hailed from the Punjabi community. Middha won by 12,000 votes. The outcome indicated polarisation of the electorate in terms of Jats and non-jats in a constituency where Jats make up 27% of the electorate. Kumar said the polarisation benefitted the BJP. “There is no Hindu-muslim factor in Haryana. But the caste dimensions are fiercely entrenched in the state and the BJP has taken advantage of this.” Hooda (a Jat leader) the Congress Legislature Party leader and chairman of the poll management committee – are seen as belated attempts to revive the party’s sinking fortunes. The party’s plan seems to concentrate on the Dalit and Jat voters who make up about 46% of the electorate. “The biggest challenge for the Congress is to create public confidence that they are in the reckoning. Right now, the perception is that BJP will win hands down...,’’ said a bureaucrat familiar with the political climate of the state.
DECIMATION OF INLD
Once a flag bearer of the farming community in the state and the principal Opposition party in the assembly, Om Prakash Chautala’s Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) has conceded political space to its rivals. The INLD has been reduced to a marginal entity following a split in the Chautala family. The formation of a splinter outfit, the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), desertions and an evaporating vote bank has reduced the INLD to a fringe player. The party performed poorly in the Lok Sabha polls with all its candidates losing their deposits. Chautala and his son Ajay are in jail for corruption.