Haryana poll results: Congress' narrative appears to have failed to find resonance with voters

Chandigarh: As the BJP looks set to retain Haryana, the Congress’ poll campaign, which was built around various issues including unemployment, farmers’ plight and Agnipath scheme, appeared to have failed to click with a majority of the voters.

The intense poll campaigns by the senior Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, also could not yield the desired result for the opposition party.

The party was looking to make a comeback after a decade by wresting power from the BJP.

However, the trends showed that the ruling BJP has crossed the majority mark in the Haryana assembly and was leading on 51 seats, while the Congress was ahead on 34.

The Congress had built its poll narrative around unemployment, farmers’ demand for a legal guarantee to minimum support price, the Agnipath military recruitment scheme and inflation in order to target the BJP’s 10-year tenure.

However, BJP leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah countered the Congress party’s offensive with the transparent system of providing government jobs and guaranteed and pensionable job for an Agniveer hailing from Haryana.

The BJP hit back at the Congress with the ‘kharchi-parchi’ (bribery and favouritism) in government jobs during Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s 10-year dispensation.

It also promised two lakh government jobs for the youth without ‘kharchi-parchi’, a reference to the alleged corruption prevailing earlier under the Congress regime.

The ruling party also highlighted giving MSP on 24 crops in Haryana, claiming that it was the first state in the country to do so.

In its poll promises, the BJP promised Rs 2,100 per month to women under the Lado Lakshmi Yojna and also announced to give a cooking gas cylinder at Rs 500 under the Har Ghar Grihni Yojna.

Bringing Nayab Singh Saini, an OBC face, as chief minister after replacing Manohar Lal Khattar in March by the BJP, also appeared to have worked to the advantage of the ruling party.

When Saini took over as CM, the ruling BJP in Haryana was facing anti-incumbency as it had been in power for nine-and-a-half years.

Announcing him as the chief ministerial face for the assembly polls, the BJP was looking to consolidate non-Jat votes in Haryana where caste equations play a key role in the electoral success of a political outfit.

The BJP’s consistent attack on the Congress over the Dalit issue also appeared to have one found resonance among voters.

PM Modi in his poll speeches went acerbic and called the Congress the biggest “anti-Dalit” outfit and also reminded the 2005 Gohana and 2010 Mirchpur incidents.

Notably, in the Gohana incident, a few homes of Dalits were set on fire after a Dalit in the village was suspected of being involved in a murder.

In the Mirchpur incident on April 21, 2010, a group of villagers had allegedly torched more than a dozen houses belonging to Dalits. A teenage girl and her father were charred to death in the incident.

The BJP also targeted the Congress over its alleged infighting with Home Minister Amit Shah accusing the grand old party of insulting Dalit leaders like Kumari Selja.

Selja was learnt to be upset after the party gave a free hand to Hooda in ticket distribution, with most candidates who got the tickets being loyalists of the two-time former CM.