Down to 5 in Haryana, take a look at what worked for BJP and what didn’t

As it is famously said about Haryana, people here claim to own politicians with pride, and if they rally behind someone wholeheartedly, no one can stop that politician from reaching new milestones! The opposite is also true that if someone shows them an attitude of power, the Haryanvi people don’t think twice before showing that person his/her real place. The Chautala dynasty which is currently at its lowest in the politics of Haryana is one famous example of this. 

On 4th June as the 2024 Lok Sabha results came out, it became clear by the evening that BJP went down by 5 seats in Haryana. Notably, the saffron party bagged all the 10 seats of the state in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. This time BJP’s success on the 5 seats mainly came from the areas touching Delhi NCR and the Ahirwal belt of South Haryana. While the Congress bagged the other 5 seats from the Jat heartland of the state. 

Talking about Gurugram, the millennium city witnessed a fierce battle between Rao Inderjit and actor Raj Babbar. Rao Inderjit eventually emerged as the winner after trailing behind in the early estimates of the counting. The villages of Ahirwal rallied behind Rao as he claimed today talking to his supporters that it is because of the villagers and his supporters he finally managed to score the victory otherwise the opposite could have happened.

From Faridabad BJP veteran, Krishanpal Gurjar defeated Mahendra Pratap of Congress. Looking at the voting pattern it became clear that the local Gurjar villages near Faridabad city voted for the congress candidate but in the city, Krishan Pal Gurjar managed to win the hearts of the voters. While in the contest of Bhiwani-Mahendargarh between two old college friends, Dharambir Singh from BJP and Rao Dan Singh from Congress, Dharambir Singh managed to win again. The voting pattern in the Ahirwal and the nearby Jat regions also saw an interesting change as the Yadav voters of the Ahirwal rallied behind the Jat candidate of BJP while the Jat voters of the Bhiwani region supported the congress candidate Rao Dan Singh. The voters of Yadav dominated Kosli region which comes under the Rohtak Lok Sabha constituency, also supported Deependra Hooda against Arvind Sharma this time.

The BJP faced a stunning loss from the Sirsa seat as Kumari Shelja of Congress defeated the new face of BJP, Ashok Tanwar. The political pundits of the state are claiming that the reason behind the Sirsa loss of BJP was the change of face as the party replaced the sitting MP Sunita Duggal and preferred Ashok Tanwar in her place. Tanwar’s image of being an opportunist also dented the core vote bank of the party in the region.

While for Kurukshetra, the smart politics of Naveen Jindal triumphed against Sushil Gupta of AAP and INLD’s Abhay Chautala. Naveen Jindal’s emotional appeals and his being an old representative of the Kurukshetra, seemed to work at the right time. One seat that was looking safe for the BJP since the beginning was Karnal, where ex-CM Manohar Lal Khattar was in a fight with Congress candidate Divyanshu Budhiraja. Khattar’s popularity in the region led him to register the victory against the young Turk of Congress party.

The Jat-dominated constituencies of Hisar, Sirsa, Sonipat, and Rohtak voted all together against the saffron party. The reason behind this is said to be the Jat resentment against BJP’s policies like Agniveer and its stand on the farmer protest issue. Overall, the BJP stands in the middle with the Ahirwal and city voters rallying behind it and the Jat-dominated regions voting against it. Now, with just a few months in the hand before the state assembly elections, the BJP is back to the huddle planning its way forward. It will be interesting to see how BJP strategizes in the coming days to regain the lost areas as the next few months will decide the course of politics of the state.