Haryana Elections: Infighting, rebels, over reliance on sitting MLAs upset Congress' applecart?

Chandigarh: Infighting, over reliance on sitting MLAs and rebel trouble appeared to be some of the contributing factors for the Congress failing to make a comeback in Haryana after a decade.

The party appeared confident of dislodging the BJP dispensation which was in power for 10 years and facing anti-incumbency.

However, the BJP with 48 seats halted grand the Congress’s comeback attempt and also proved several exit polls wrong which had predicted a comfortable win for the grand old party in Haryana. The Congress managed to muster 37 seats in the 90-member assembly.

Senior Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda Tuesday said the poll outcome was opposite to what the atmosphere in the state was.

“The results have left us ‘achambhit’ (stunned) and the BJP must also be ‘achambhit’. These results are opposite to what the atmosphere was in the state,” he said after the polls results.

After wresting five seats from the ruling BJP in this year’s Lok Sabha polls, the Congress was in an upbeat mood and built its poll campaign around various issues including unemployment, farmers’ plight and the Agnipath scheme.

But it failed to put up a united fight and its factionalism was exploited by the ruling BJP in their entire campaign which included taking potshots at the grand old party over not-so-good equations between Hooda and prominent Dalit face Kumari Selja.

Also, unlike the BJP, which has a well-organised and strong organisational structure till the grass-roots level, the Congress failed to set up one in Haryana for past many years now.

The party over relied on 28 of its sitting MLAs, renominating them all, but 15 of them lost. This was in contrast to BJP, which had denied tickets to several sitting legislators bringing in many fresh faces.

Among the Congress MLAs who lost included Shamsher Singh Gogi, Pradeep Chaudhary, Mewa Singh, Surender Panwar, Dharam Singh Chhoker, Amit Sihag and Chiranjeev Rao.

Losing more than half of its sitting legislators dealt a blow to Congress’ comeback chances.

Besides, the rebel factor also played out which also damaged the Congress’ prospects.

The rebels split the vote against the BJP going to saffron outfit’s advantage, but causing damage to Congress on a few seats.

Chitra Sarwara, a Congress rebel, jumped into contest from Ambala Cantt to take on BJP stalwart Anil Vij. She was denied ticket by the Congress. Vij defeated Sarwara by a margin of over 7,000 votes. While Vij secured 59,858 votes, Sarwara got 52,581 while Congress candidate Parvinder Pal Pari got 14,469 votes.

There were a few more seats like Bahadurgarh, Kalka, Gohana and Ballabhgarh where the rebels upset the Congress applecart.

From Ballabhgarh in Faridabad district, BJP’s sitting MLA Mool Chand Sharma defeated her nearest rival Shardha Rathore.

Rathore, who was an aspirant of Congress ticket, fought as an Independent after failing to get a ticket. While Mool Chand Sharma secured 61,806 votes, Rathore got 44,076 votes while Congress’ Parag Sharma ended up at fourth spot.

In the Lok Sabha polls too, senior leader Hooda’s choice prevailed in eight of the nine seats the Congress fought – barring the Sirsa seat contested and won by Selja. It won five seats while its INDIA bloc ally AAP unsuccessfully fought the Kurukshetra seat.

In the Assembly polls too, Hooda’s choice prevailed in over 70 seats and somewhere it left leaders like Selja sulking.

Selja had on Tuesday said the party high command should assess all reasons that led to the disappointing result and identify the people responsible.

“The Haryana poll results are disappointing and I am pained at the disappointment of the Congress workers in the state who have worked very hard and were looking forward to forming their government after 10 years.

“It will not be business as usual in Haryana and I am sure the Congress high command would identify those who negated the efforts to bring the party to power after 10 years,” she had told reporters.