Haryana Chief Minister O.P. Chautala should be grateful for small mercies. Had he gone for the Assembly elections along with the Lok Sabha polls, his party would have been reduced to a 10-member Opposition.The ruling Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), which failed to garner even a single seat in the parliamentary polls, would have bombed at the Assembly hustings if the segment-wise lead of various parties during the recent polls, is any indication.The Haryana Vikas Party (HVP), which has two members in the present Vidhan Sabha, would have doubled its number of MLAs from two to four with its candidates leading in four Assembly segments in the LS polls. The BJP, meanwhile, would have maintained its kitty of six MLAs, as its candidates took the lead in only six constituencies.But the biggest gainer would have been the Congress, whose candidates led in 70 Assembly segments. In simple terms, it would have meant 70 MLAs for a party which has only 20 in the present Vidhan Sabha.The biggest loser would have been the ruling INLD, whose candidates could maintain their lead in only 10 Assembly segments. And these don’t include those in either Bhiwani or Kurukshetra, the two constitiencies from where Chautala’s sons tried their might.The only support the party could garner came from parts of Sonepat, Hisar, Faridabad and Sirsa — Chautala’s home constituency. In 2002, the party had won 48 of the 61 seats it contested in alliance with the BJP.The BJP, which had promised all the 10 Lok sabha seats as a gift to former Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee, could wrest only Sonepat and that too by a slender margin of about 5,000 votes. The six Assembly segments where the party got a lead were also part of the Sonepat LS seat.Surprisingly, HVP fared quite badly even in supremo Bansi Lal’s native constituency of Bhiwani. His son Surender Singh could secure leads in only four segments of Badhra, Tosham, Dadri and Loharu, while Kuldeep Bishnoi, son of state Congress chief Bhajan Lal, forged ahead in the other five, including Bhiwani, represented by Bansi lal.The Congress hold was complete in at least five constituencies of Ambala, Rohrak, Karnal, Mahendragarh, and Kurukshetra, where its candidates led in all Assembly segments.Fighting from Hisar, Jai Prakash of the Congress managed a lead in all the Assembly segments barring Narwana, which incidentally is the stronghold of Youth Congress chief Randeep Singh Surjewala, who at one stage had sent his resignation after being denied party ticket from Hisar.Congress’s surprise candidate Atma Singh Gill led in six of the nine Assembly segments after failing to storm the INLD citadel of Battu Kalan, represented by Finance Minister Sampat Singh and Rori, the Assembly seat of Abhay Singh Chautala.
