Independents, regional parties in Haryana eye a major role in post-poll scenario

Caught in a direct contest in Haryana during the Lok Sabha election earlier this year, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress-Aam Aadmi Party alliance had finished neck and neck, leading in 44 and 46 Assembly segments respectively.

But with Independents and regional party candidates also emerging as strong contenders in a few pockets in the agrarian State, the political calculations of the two national parties could go awry in this weekend’s high-stakes Assembly election.

None of the political parties in Haryana have managed to win a landslide victory over the past three Assembly elections. The Congress and the BJP both fell short of the simple majority in the 90-member House in the 2009 and 2019 Assembly Polls respectively and formed governments with the support of the Independents and the regional parties.

Despite the national ‘Modi wave’ of 2014, the BJP just managed to cross the majority mark of 45 seats in that year’s Assembly election. In 2019, seven Independents and 12 candidates of three regional parties emerged victorious, resulting in a hung Assembly.

Tough contests

This time around, there are 1031 candidates, including 462 Independents, in the fray. Several Independent candidates, including Congress and BJP ‘rebels’, are putting up a tough contest against the nominees of the two national parties in a number of Assembly seats, including Ambala Cantonment, Hisar, Uchana Kalan, Bahadurgarh, Mahendragarh, Gannaur, Baroda, Gurugram, Badshahpur, Tigaon, Pundri, and Hathin.

Similarly, the Chautalas-led Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), which had only won the Ellenabad seat in 2019, has now entered into an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to put up a serious fight in around half-a-dozen seats, mostly in its traditional stronghold of Sirsa. The Haryana Jan Sevak Party’s Balraj Kundu and Haryana Lokhit Party’s Gopal Kanda are also strong contestants, from the Meham and Sirsa Assembly constituencies respectively. Mr. Kanda’s party is also part of the INLD-BSP alliance.

The Aam Aadmi Party, which had registered a lead in four Assembly segments when it contested the Lok Sabha poll in alliance with the Congress, has now fielded candidates in 89 Assembly seats. The party’s senior leadership, led by its national convenor Arvind Kejriwal, has campaigned aggressively in over half a dozen seats, including Kalayat, Jagadhari, Bhiwani, Gharaonda, Barwala, Rania, Sohna, and Rewari.

While the AAP’s senior Haryana vice-president Anurag Dhanda, a journalist-turned-politician, is a contesting from Kalayat, the party has fielded turncoat Satish Yadav, a former BJP district president, from Rewari.

Rebels and alliances

The Jannayak Janta Party, which had won ten seats in the last Assembly election, is contesting in an alliance with the Azad Samaj Party this time. The alliance’s candidates could alter the results in a few constituencies in a multi-cornered contest.

The BJP and the Congress have each expelled around a dozen leaders, including party rebels contesting as Independents, for anti-party activities. Some rebels expelled by the BJP for contesting as Independents are: Ranjit Chautala (Rania), Naveen Goyal (Gurugram), Devender Kadiyan (Ganaur), Radha Ahlawat (Meham), Sandeep Garg (Ladwa), Jileram Sharma (Assandh), Kehar Singh Rawat (Hathin) and Bachchan Singh Arya (Safidon). The Congress, too, has expelled its rebels, including those contesting from Jind, Pundri, Nilokheri, Uchana Kalan, Prithla, and Kalayat.

Aware of the danger posed by the Independents and the regional parties, former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has on several occasions cautioned his supporters to beware of those likely to split votes. Without naming the Chautalas, who lead the JJP and INLD, Mr. Hooda had said, while filing his nomination, that a party in the previous election had won 10 seats and eaten into their vote share, costing them an opportunity to form the government. “Again, the same conspiracy is being hatched,” he said.

Hoping for a fractured mandate this time again, the leaders of both Chautala-led alliances and the AAP have said that their parties will have an important role to play in the post-poll scenario.