Election to the 90-member Haryana Assembly, slated to be held on October 5, has more of a symbolic value than that suggested by its size. A National Democratic Alliance government is in power here with the BJP leading it with no absolute majority on its own. It has a strong anti-incumbency factor working against it, but the Congress-led Opposition alliance, too, seems disunited even while it seeks to deny the ruling front a hat-trick term.
The BJP was not a major player in state politics until the Narendra Modi wave swept the north Indian political milieu in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Until then, members of the Janata Parivar and the Congress Party had left very little space for Hindutva politics to thrive in the largely rural state. But infighting within the then incumbent Congress government, divisions within the Opposition bloc and new hopes for a developed India advanced by the BJP under Mr Modi catapulted the BJP to power, though with a wafer-thin majority of two seats in the 2014 Assembly election. The party failed to retain its tally in 2019, yet managed to keep arch-rival Congress out of power by forging an alliance with the Dushyant Chautala-led Jannayak Janata Party and stayed in power.
The 2024 Lok Sabha election offered little reason for the BJP to feel comfortable because, unlike in the previous two elections, it had to concede one half of the seats to the Congress. Haryana was in fact one of the few major BJP-ruled states where the party received a jolt. That it replaced trusted old RSS hand Manoharlal Khattar midway through the second term had not helped, and there are no signs that this has improved now.
The disgraceful defence by the party of former president of the Wrestling Federation of India and party MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh when he faced allegations of sexual harassment by wrestlers, mostly from the state, has also not worked for the party either; worse, the loss of a medal by wrestler Vinesh Phogat in the Paris Olympics has put it on the defensive. And that she has joined the Congress and is contesting the election is another factor it must grapple with now. The JJP is not in alliance and is fighting the election on its own.
Yet the Congress-led INDIA bloc with AAP as the major member is a divided house. The alliance talks which advanced on the insistence of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi have not reached anywhere and both the parties are in the process of releasing their own lists of candidates. While the AAP is driving a hard bargain with the Congress, the latter is confident that it can coast to victory without the ally, which is its rival in neighbouring Punjab and Delhi. The failed experiment of the alliance in Delhi in the last Lok Sabha elections is another factor why the Congress’ local leadership is not very enthused.
It will be interesting to watch how the electoral game unfolds in Haryana before bigger states like Maharashtra and Jharkhand go to polls later this year.
