For Hooda, cold comfort in rise in Congress votes, having staked all for Adampur contest

The sidelined leaders, including Randeep Surjewala, Kumari Selja and Kiran Choudhry, had stayed away from the campaign, leaving the task of canvassing votes for Congress Adampur candidate Jai Prakash solely upon Hooda, son and Rajya Sabha MP Deepender Hooda, and Hooda loyalist and PCC chief Udai Bhan.

A senior Congress leader had said earlier to The Indian Express that “the father-son duo” deliberately kept them out, “not even inviting the senior Haryana Congress leadership to campaign”.

In contrast, the BJP didn’t just close ranks behind its candidate Bhavya Bishnoi, the son of Congress crossover Kuldeep Bishnoi, but also ensured its partner JJP stood behind him. The Chautalas of the JJP and the family of Bhajan Lal have long been rivals, but they shared the dais to campaign for Bishnoi. Even the BJP’s candidate on the seat last time turned up.

As Bishnoi won, a Haryana Congress leader said: “Had the party been able to put up a united face, the result could have been different.”

It’s anybody’s guess now whether Hooda would be allowed the free hand in the state that he has enjoyed recently, having almost forced the high command into it.

A JJP leader turned the knife in: “It is time for Hooda and his son to claim responsibility for the Adampur defeat. Whose defeat is this? Has Congress nominee Jai Prakash lost? No. It is the Hoodas who have lost this battle. Had Jai Prakash won, the entire credit would have been claimed by the Hoodas.”

Haryana BJP Cabinet minister Mool Chand Sharma said their win was never in doubt, the only thing to be seen was the victory margin, and that the party had scored there as well. Power Minister Ranjit Singh Chautala described the result as “a warning sign for the Congress”.

Putting up a brave face, Deepender said the Congress’s performance was “respectable” and that it “gives the party hope for the 2024 elections”. “In 2019, Kuldeep Bishnoi had won by nearly 30,000 votes from Adampur on a Congress ticket. This time, his son contested the bypoll on a BJP ticket, got the JJP’s backing and yet the winning margin got reduced to half. In 2014, the Congress had got barely 10,000 votes when Kuldeep had contested from Adampur on his Haryana Janhit Congress party’s ticket. Now Congress candidate Jai Prakash has got over 51,000 votes… Kuldeep Bishnoi had been claiming that even if Bhavya won by one vote less than 30,000, he would not consider that a victory… Without the Bishnoi family in our party fold, the Congress has achieved this significant increase in vote share. It gives us hope that we can eventually break the Bishnoi stronghold in the 2024 polls,” Deepender told The Indian Express.

He added that they were up against significant odds. “It was kind of a new constituency for us without the Bishnoi family… We had to start from scratch. But in 20 days of campaigning, we managed to give a tough fight in an election considered completely in favour of the Bishnoi family.”

For the BJP, the Bishnoi win is also significant for other reasons. It adds to the party’s kitty a seat it had never won earlier, and marks its first win with ally JJP. Together since December 2018, the allies lost the other two bypolls they contested together.

The Adampur result could now determine the fate of the alliance before the Assembly elections.