Underdog Congress resurrects on Haryana political scene, winning 5 of 10 seats

The vote share of the BJP, which also won five seats, losing five others to the Congress, slipped from 58 per cent in 2019 to nearly 46 per cent this time. The AAP, contested as part of the INDIA bloc on one seat, failed to open its account in Haryana with nearly 3.94 per cent vote share.

Chief minister Nayab Saini, meanwhile, won the Karnal Assembly bypoll, defeating Congress’s Tarlochan Singh by a margin of over 41540 votes.

For the Congress, Deepender Hooda (polled over 7.78 lakh votes) won Rohtak by a margin of over 3.43 lakh votes, defeating BJP’s Arvind Sharma (polled over 4.35 lakh votes) and Kumari Selja won (polled 7.33 lakh votes) in Sirsa by a margin of 2,68,497 votes defeating BJP’s Ashok Tanwar (polled 4.65 lakh votes).

In Ambala, Varun Chaudhry (polled over 6.63 lakh votes) defeated BJP’s Banto Kataria (polled over 6.14 lakh votes) by a margin of over 49,000 votes, while Jai Prakash (polled over 5.70 lakh votes) defeated BJP’s Ranjit Singh (polled over 5.07 lakh votes) in Hisar by a margin of 63,381 votes and newcomer Satpal Brahmchari (polled over 5.48 lakh votes) defeated BJP’s Mohan Lal Badoli (polled over 5.26 lakh votes) in Sonipat by a margin of 21,816 votes.

For the BJP, former chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar with over 7.37 lakh votes remained the top scorer, defeating Congress’s Divyanshu Buddhiraja (polled over 5.04 lakh votes) in Karnal by a margin of over 2.32 lakh votes. Former Union ministers Krishan Pal Gurjar (polled over 7.8 lakh votes) and Rao Inderjit Singh (polled over 8.05 lakh votes) managed to retain their turfs.

While Krishan Pal defeated Congress’ Mahendra Pratap (polled over 61.5 lakh votes) in Faridabad by a margin of 1,72,914 votes, Rao Inderjit defeated Congress’ Raj Babbar (polled over 7.31 lakh votes) in Gurgaon by a margin of over 73,000 votes.

In Kurukshetra, BJP’s Naveen Jindal (polled over 5.42 lakh votes) defeated AAP’s Sushil Gupta (polled over 5.13 lakh votes) by a margin of 29,021 votes, while BJP’s Dharambir (polled over 5.82 lakh votes) defeated Congress’ Rao Dan Singh (5.41 lakh votes) in Bhiwani-Mahendragarh by a margin of over 40,000 votes.

Congress’s Kumari Selja and Deepender Hooda maintained a significant lead in their respective constituencies from the first round of counting itself. For the BJP, Manohar Lal Khattar was the only one who maintained a steady lead throughout the counting while Krishan Pal started registering the lead after a few rounds of counting got over.

The seats of Kurukshetra and Sonipat witnessed a tight contest since the beginning of the counting. In Gurgaon, while Congress’s Raj Babbar maintained a lead over BJP’s Rao Inderjit till afternoon, Rao Inderjit began leading towards the evening and eventually emerged victorious.

While the contest on all 10 Lok Sabha seats remained primarily between the BJP and the Congress, the INLD and the JJP’s candidates lost their security deposits on all seats they contested.

The result also marked a significant blow to the Chautalas, one prominent political family in Haryana. Four members of the Chautala family were in the fray, including three BJP’s Ranjit Singh former deputy prime minister Devi Lal’s son; JJP’s Naina Chautala wife of Devi Lal’s grandson Ajay Chautala; INLD’s Sunaina Chautala wife of Devi Lal’s grandson Ravi Chautala, and INLD’s Abhay Chautala grandson of Devi Lal. While Abhay contested from Kurukshetra, Ranjit, Naina and Sunaina were locked in a battle in the Hisar Lok Sabha seat. None could save their security deposit.

Ranjit Singh got over 5.01 lakh votes, yet trailed behind Congress’s Jai Prakash by a margin of over 60,000 votes; Abhay Singh Chautala could barely get over 76,000 votes in Kurukshetra and finished a distant third. Similarly, Sunaina Chautala barely got nearly 22,000 votes and Naina Chautala could barely get over 21,000 votes and finished distant fourth and fifth, respectively.