How BJP won these 9 nine Haryana assembly seats, for the first time

Former Chief Minister Bansi Lal’s granddaughter Shruti Choudhry has been elected from Tosham Assembly constituency of Bhiwani district, defeating her cousin Anirudh Chaudhary of Congress by a margin of over 14,000 votes. Her mother Kiran Choudhry is the Rajya Sabha MP of BJP from Haryana. A few months back both had left Congress to join BJP after a bitter turf war with senior Congress leader and former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Tosham has been a stronghold of Bansi Lal’s family. Kiran represented Tosham for four times while Shruti has been a Lok Sabha MP from Bhiwani-Mahendragarh seat.

From Narwana (reserved) seat, the BJP had fielded Krishan Bedi, a former minister. Bedi was earlier elected from Shahabad of Kurukshetra district in 2014 and was inducted in the Manohar Lal Khattar-led Cabinet. However, he failed to retain the seat in 2019 Assembly elections, prompting the party to field him from Narwana this time. Bedi defeated Congress’ Satbir Dablain by a margin of 11,499 votes. The constituency has presence of a significant number of Jat voters and it’s believed that INLD candidate Vidya Rani Danoda dented the prospects of Congress. Danoda secured 46,303 votes.

In Safidon, the BJP reposed faith in JJP rebel Ram Kumar Gautam. In the 2019 election, Gautam was elected from Narnaund on the JJP ticket. However, he later turned a rebel after the JJP did not facilitate a Cabinet birth for him when it entered into a post-poll alliance with the BJP. Gautam defeated Congress’s Subhash Gangoli by a margin of 4,037 votes while a Congress rebel Jasbir Deswal secured 20,114 votes.

Vidhan Sabha deputy Speaker Ranbir Gangwa, meanwhile, has been elected from Barwala constituency. In the 2019 election, Gangwa had won from Nalwa seat. This time, the BJP decided to change his seat keeping in view a considerable number of OBC voters, including from Gangwa’s Kumhar community, in Barwala. The Congress too fielded a Kumhar community member Ramniwas Ghorela reportedly on the recommendations of Hooda while ignoring the recommendations of AICC general secretary Kumari Selja. This seat witnessed an intense infighting among the local Congress leaders. A section of Jat voters remained upset despite Hooda’s son Deepender Singh Hooda campaigning for Ghorela. Ghorela lost the seat by a margin of nearly 27,000 votes even as INLD candidate Sanjana Satrod secured 29,055 votes.

In Gohana, the BJP fielded former Rohtak MP Arvind Sharma who defeated Congress’ sitting MLA Jagbir Singh Malik by a margin of nearly 10,000 votes. This seat is part of Hooda’s stronghold but an independent candidate Harsh Chhikara, played spoilsport, securing 14,761 votes. Like Malik, Chhikara is also from the Jat community. Another Jat community member and independent candidate Rajvir Singh Dahiya secured 8,824 votes.

Like Gohana, Kharkhoda (SC reserved) has also been considered to be a bastion of Hooda. Here, BJP’s Pawan Kharkhoda defeated Congress’s Jaivir Valmiki by a margin of 5,635 votes. Pawan had unsuccesfully contested the 2019 Assembly election on JJP ticket. He had joined the BJP in June this year.

For BJP, the win from Samalkha came as the icing on the cake. The seat was considered a Congress stronghold, with the grand old party winning it five times in 13 elections. In Samalkha, BJP’s Manmohan Bhadana defeated Congress’s sitting MLA Dharam Singh Chhoker by a margin of 19,315 votes. Former Independent MLA Ravinder Machhrauli, who contested this election as an independent candidate, secured 21,132 votes.

From Charkhi Dadri, BJP’s Sunil Sangwan, a former jailer, defeated Congress’s Manisha Sangwan by a margin of just 1,957 votes. Two independent candidates Sanjay Chhaparia and Ajit Singh secured 3,713 and 3,369 votes, respectively. Congress had fielded Manisha while ignoring the claim of sitting Independent MLA Sombir Sangwan, who had joined the Congress ahead of the Assembly polls. Son of former minister Satpal Sangwan, Sunil had quit from his post recently taking voluntary retirement. He last served in Gurugram district and joined the BJP ahead of the October 5 Assembly polls. Sunil, during his tenure, served as superintendent of many jails, including the Sunaria jail in Rohtak for five years, where Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim is lodged. Out of 11 occasions when Ram Rahim was released on parole or furlough from Sunaria jail, six were when Sunil was superintendent of Sunaria jail. Sunil has been stating that divisional commissioner is the competent authority in such cases, not the jail superintendent.

This time Congress lost Faridabad NIT too. Here BJP’s Satish Phagna defeated Congress’ sitting MLA Neeraj Sharma by a margin of 33,217 votes. Former MLA and INLD candidate Nagender Bhadana, a BJP rebel, secured nearly 30,000 votes while the JJP’s Haji Karamat Ali got nearly 9,000 votes. It’s believed that the candidature of Bhadana and Ali hit the prospects of Sharma.