Tags:
Journalism of Courage
As the high-voltage campaign came to an end Saturday, the October 21 Haryana Assembly polls have slowly emerged as a contest between BJP’s “nation-first” poll pitch combined with Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s five-year tenure in the state and opposition’s questions on “deteriorating economy and unemployment” and various state-specific issues.
The prime contest, this time, will be between the two national parties – BJP and Congress. From among the regional parties – the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and its offshoot the Janayak Janata Party (JJP) – the latter appears to have gathered significant support especially among the youth and in the rural areas. 2014’s prime opposition party INLD, which got 19 out of 90 seats then, appears to be totally decimated.
Haryana witnessed a stark difference between the campaigns of BJP and Congress.
BJP’s star-studded campaign included seven rallies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, five by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, over 40 rallies by various other star campaigners including Rajnath Singh, Smriti Irani, Ravishankar Prasad, Sunny Deol, Hema Malini, Narendra Singh Tomar, Nitin Gadkari, Hardeep Puri, former army chief Gen (retd) VK Singh, all 10 party MPs of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, Delhi MP Gautam Gambhir and several others and 77 public rallies and road shows by Khattar.
On the other hand, Congress high command appeared to have abandoned the state and left it to its newly appointed state unit chief Kumari Selja and former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Although, both Selja and Hooda addressed over 30 public rallies, but neither Sonia Gandhi, nor former prime minister Manmohan Singh campaigned here. Party leader Rahul Gandhi addressed only two public rallies, including one in Nuh and another in Mahendragarh and that too in the last lap of the campaigning. Punjab’s Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, too, did not campaign in Haryana despite being included in the list of star campaigners.
Congress’ infighting also resulted in a rebellion in the run up to the polls. It’s former state unit chief Ashok Tanwar resigned, levelled serious accusations on the party’s senior leaders and recently announced support to rival parties’ candidates, which may impact Congress’ prospects. BJP, too, witnessed rebellion but managed to pacify most.
Although BJP did a clean sweep in May 2019 Lok Sabha polls,. winning all 10 seats in Haryana with thumping victory margins, yet it did not take any chances in the campaigning. Except for Khattar, who only addressed two public meetings in his constituency – Karnal, all his other cabinet colleagues who are seeking reelection, mostly remained confined to their respective constituencies.
Earlier, Modi was scheduled to address four rallies in Haryana but BJP last minute added three more rallies to his itinerary, giving further push to its widespread campaign.
During its entire campaign, BJP kept abrogation of Article 370 and 35-A in J&K as its core focus. All its star campaigners and party’s nominees in their public addresses kept nationalism on the top, followed by the state government’s performance in last five years.
The entire opposition, however, has targeted ruling BJP of misleading the voters by using national issues to “camouflage its failures in the state”.
The October 21 polls will also decide the fate of over 30 turncoats in the fray with BJP fielding 15, JJP 13 and Congress two such candidates.
In 2014, BJP had won 47 seats – its best ever performance in Haryana, and formed the government with absolute majority. INLD had got 19, Congress 15 and Haryana Janhit Congress (which later merged into Congress) had got two. With a current strength of 48 in the Vidhan Sabha (including Jind that BJP won in a bypoll in January this year), BJP has set a target of 75 plus seats, this time.
The other political parties including BSP, AAP, INLD-SAD combine, Swaraj India and the Loktantra Suraksha Party (LSP) have also thrown their hat into the ring, though none of them is fighting on all 90 seats. Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal stayed away from the campaign even while his party is contesting on 46 seats.
Among the prominent leaders in fray include Khattar, Hooda, and Randeep Surjewala, Kiran Choudhry, Kuldeep Bishnoi from Congress, Dushyant Chautala and his mother Naina Chautala from JJP, Abhay Chautala from INLD, Tik-Tok star Sonali Phogat and sports champions including Babita Phogat, Yogeshwar Dutt and Sandeep Singh from BJP.
