The Congress made significant gains in Haryana wresting five Lok Sabha seats and giving a setback to ruling BJP, whose tally was down from 10 to five in the state, where the assembly polls are also due later this year.
As the Congress made a comeback, its Rohtak candidate Deepender Singh Hooda won with the highest margin while party veteran Kumari Selja also registered a big win in Sirsa.
For the BJP, former Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar (Karnal), and Union ministers and sitting MPs Rao Inderjit Singh (Gurgaon) and Krishan Pal Gurjar (Faridabad) were among notable winners.
In the 2019 elections, the BJP had won all 10 seats in the state.
Candidates of the JJP, which contested all 10 seats and INLD and BSP, which fought seven and nine seats, respectively, received a severe drubbing in this election.
In a post on X in Hindi, JJP leader Dushyant Chautala said, “On one hand, I am proud of the voters of India that they have always voted to strengthen the country, the Constitution and democracy.
“On the other hand, I apologize that we did not live up to your expectations while being in the government and the assembly (when JJP was ally of BJP).” In the Karnal assembly constituency, where a bypoll was held, Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini won with a convincing margin of 41,540 votes over Congress nominee Tarlochan Singh.
Mr Saini had replaced Mr Khattar as chief minister as the BJP effected a leadership change in March days before the Lok Sabha polls were announced. Mr Khattar contested the Karnal parliamentary seat.
With over four months to go for the state assembly polls, Mr Saini faces a challenging task to make his party battle-ready with win in five seats coming as a big boost to the Congress camp.
BJP sitting MP in Bhiwani-Mahendragarh Dharambir Singh also retained his seat.
Arvind Sharma was the only sitting MP who lost as he went down to Deepender Hooda.
The BJP had brought in new faces this time from Sonipat, Hisar, Sirsa as well as from Ambala where Banto Kataria, wife of late Rattan Lal Kataria, contested but all lost though another new face Naveen Jindal won from Kurukshetra.
Prominent losers included Congress’ Raj Babbar from Gurgaon, BJP’s Ranjit Chautala and JJP’s sitting MLA Naina Chautala with both losing to Congress’ Jai Prakash from Hisar, Haryana Youth Congress chief Divyanshu Budhiraja who lost to Khattar from Karnal by over 2.32 lakh votes, AAP’s state unit chief Sushil Gupta and INLD’s Abhay Singh Chautala, both of whom went down to BJP’s Naveen Jindal from Kurukshetra.
Also, BJP’s sitting MP from Rohtak Arvind Sharma lost to Deepender Hooda by a margin of over 3.45 lakh votes while BJP’s Ashok Tanwar lost to Congress’ Selja by a margin of over 2.68 lakh votes from Sirsa.
Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda claimed that the Congress’ performance in the Lok Sabha polls in the state will have an impact on the state assembly elections, which are due in October.
Bhupinder Hooda said that farmers’ plight, Agnipath scheme, unemployment, law and order, and inflation were key issues which the ruling BJP failed to address.
This time, the Congress had fielded candidates on nine seats while its INDIA bloc ally AAP contested the Kurukshetra seat.
After initial hiccups in early counting rounds over Congress rival Raj Babbar, Union minister Rao Inderjit Singh managed to hold on to his Gurgaon seat, which he won fourth time in a row by a margin of over 75,000 votes.
Singh had also represented Mahendragarh twice, which later became Bhiwani-Mahendragarh constituency from 2009.
Kumari Selja, who defeated her BJP rival Ashok Tanwar by a margin of 2,68,497 votes from Sirsa, she became the seventh woman in Haryana to enter the lower house.
Reacting to her victory, Ms Selja said she will always be indebted to the people of Sirsa.
She said her priority will be to provide development, education and health facilities to the people of the area.
Reacting to his performance in Karnal assembly seat, Chief Minister Mr Saini said, “This is victory of people of Haryana.” About NDA’s performance, he said the people have put a stamp for third time on the policies of the Modi-led government.
Under Modi’s leadership, the way Haryana has undertaken progress earlier, the state will continue to do so in future, Mr Saini said.
On Congress wresting five seats from the BJP, Bhupinder Hooda said he had been saying that “there is a wave blowing in favour of the Congress”.
Haryana is known for “jai jawan, jai kisan, jai pehalwan”, Hooda said.
“But what did they (BJP) do. They brought Agniveer (Agnipath scheme), which faced opposition from the youth. They did not redress farmers’ issues. And everyone knows the treatment that was meted to our wrestler daughters, who had to protest (at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar),” he said.
Congress gained a chunk of vote share after wresting five seats from ruling BJP, whose share was down in comparison with 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Having clean swept in Haryana in 2019 polls, the BJP had secured a vote share of 58.2 per cent then, which has now come down to 46.11 per cent, as per the latest data from the Election Commission.
The Congress’ vote share went up from 28.42 per cent in 2019 to 43.7 per cent.
Congress’ INDIA bloc partner AAP, which contested the Kurukshetra seat, managed to get a vote share of 3.49 per cent.
Meanwhile, after initial see-saw in many rounds in the Sonipat seat, Congress’ Satpal Brahmachari prevailed over BJP’s sitting MLA Mohan Lal Badoli, with the grand old party candidate winning by a margin of 21,816 votes.
In the Ambala constituency, Congress’ Varun Chaudhary, a sitting MLA, secured a win over his BJP rival Banto Kataria with a margin of 49,036 votes.
INLD candidates lost their security deposits in the polls.
Likewise, Jannayak Janta Party, whose alliance with the BJP ended in March, and Bahujan Samaj Party candidates also received severe drubbing and lost their deposits.
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SOURCE: NDTV
