Yeh tantra ki jeet aurloktantrakihaarhai (this is the defeat of democracy by manipulating the system). This remark of Congress party sums up the Haryana assembly election results which created serious doubts about integrity of the electronic voting system. The party also registered a formal complaint with the Election Commission, claiming that out of 90 assembly seats the results for as many as20 seats were allegedly rigged.
There is not the slightest uncertainty regarding the stunning nature of election outcomes in Haryana.All political analysts, political leaders, and pro-Modi media outlets have been projecting a landslide victory for the Congress in the state for the past three months. Even the exit polls gave the Congress an average of fifty-five seats.
On October 8, though, as the results began to come in, all the predictions went completely wrong. Out of the 90 assembly seats in Haryana,the ruling BJP won 48 seats – two more than the cutmark to form the government, and Congress stuck at 37 seats while rest of the seats went to independents and others.
The BJP had won 47 seats in 2014 when it first formed the state government. Furthermore, this performance is significantly superior to its 40-seat total from 2019, when it needed the help of the JannayakJanta Party (JJP) to stay in power.
Other contenders, including AamAadmi Party and JJP, which emerged as the kingmaker in the 2019 elections, were totally destroyed.
The fact that JJP leader Dushyant Chautala dropped to fifth place in his stronghold of Uchana Kalan in Jind district is a good indicator of the discontent.
Despite grand claims of its political comeback, the former ruling Indian National Lok Dal, with only two seats, too failed to impress. Additionally, its leader, Abhay Chautala, of the Sirsa district’s Ellenabad stronghold, lost the election.
In contrast to ground realities, several reasons are given for the Congress party’s loss, some of which could justify the BJP’s win.
However, the Congress rejected the Haryana election results as “unexpected, unacceptable and a defeat for democracy”. It submitted complaints from 20 constituencies to the Election Commission.
Addressing a press conference just after the results were announced, party general secretary in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh and chairman of Media and Publicity Department Pawan Khera maintained that the election results in Haryana were totally in contravention of the ground realities and public sentiment that was for change and transformation.
Khera disclosed that there were specific complaints about the possible manipulations of EVMs. He said some of the candidates referred to some EVMs having 99 percent battery strength even after many rounds of the counting and the results from all such machines went against the Congress. Whereas, he added, those machines, whose battery strength was normal, between 60 to 70 percent, showed Congress candidates to be winning.
Khera said, the party delegation strongly asserted that all these machines which are under question, must be sealed properly till the completion of the inquiry.
Ramesh said the Congress had been shown losing even in those seats, where there was no scope of its candidates losing.
Haryana Congress president UdaiBhan referred to many EVMsfound to be charged up to 90-99 percent even after hours of use. He said, all such EVMs showed the BJP winning while those machines with less battery charge after hours of use showed the BJP losing.
Even a day before the counting, Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini had bragged that the BJP would win and the Congress would blame EVMs. This statement also lends credence to the Congress charge of manipulating the election.
It is said the Adani group has heavily invested in Haryana. Furthermore, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah were under pressure from RSS on the choice of the BJP’s next president.In case the BJP would have lost the election, both Adani and Modi-Shah would have been in trouble.
According to an analyst, to pull off this unexpected win in Haryana, the BJP skilfully mobilized non-Jat castes by using anti-Jat sentiments. Furthermore, the BJP media apparatus refrained from openly announcing this planned mobilization of non-Jat castes during the election campaign.
The BJP did not make this electoral approach public not because it didn’t want the anti-BJP forces to know about this shady operation , but rather because the Hindutva ideology downplays or rejects the existence of caste distinctions in Hindu society.
Speaking at a “Swayamsevak Samagrahan” event in Rajasthan a few days prior to the announcement of the election results, RSSchiefMohan Bhagwat described the Hindutva goal as one of fostering Hindu unity by eradicating internal differences based on caste, language, and geography.
Another political analyst Kushal Pal told The Wire that the Congress thought that focusing on ground issues would make it the de facto choice of voters in Haryana. No doubt the public resentment against the BJP was a reality in this election, but Haryana’s politics has another important side, which is caste identity politics, where the Congress completely flipped, giving opportunity to the BJP to revive itself, he said.
Pal added that Congress’s slogan of the 36 biradaris’ bhaichara proved futile in the absence of pushing for a collective leadership during the election and accommodating the interests of all factions within the party.
Pal added that although the party’s plan may have been to win the polls by consolidating Jat votes, in doing so it casually took leaders of other castes. The message was loud and clear in the Congress that former CM and well-known Jat leaderBhopinder Singh Hooda was running the entire show, even having a lion’s share of the ticket distribution.
The Muslim-majority Nuh region of the state represents the sole bright spot for the Congress. The party fielded five Muslim candidates and all romped home with handsome margins. The party’s commitment to diversity and its strategic choices paid off, as seen by the Muslim candidates’ historically high 100% strike rate. This also shows that there was no communal wave this time as in Hathin, Muhammad Israel of Congress defeated his BJP rival Manoj Kumar by a margin of 32,396 votes. The seat has considerable non- Muslim votes. Likewise, Akram Khan defeated BJP candidateKanwar Pal, receiving 67,403 votes as opposed to 60,535 for the Jagadhari seat. Since the Congress last won this seat in 1991, this result is especially significant as it represents a significant return for the party.Other three Congress candidates Mamam Khan (Ferozepur Jhirka), Aftab Ahmed, (Nuh), and Muhammad Ilyas (Punhana) also registered resounding victories. These seats are heavily dominated by Muslims. BJP’s both Muslim candidates had to bite the dust.
On Congress’s defeat, one analyst said the party paid heavy price for its non-serious approach to the EVM issue. After the Vote for Democracy (Maharashtra)’s comprehensive report raising doubts on EVMs and the ADR report on the 2024 general elections, the Congress didn’t take these reports seriously, he added and warned that the same tactics would be applied in the forthcoming assembly election in Maharashtra and Jharkhand.
Jammu and Kashmir
The INDIA bloc won a resounding mandate in Jammu and Kashmir, rejecting the abrogation of Article 370 and 35A. While, the Hindu stronghold of the Union Territory, Jammu, voted once more for the BJP.
The National Conference (NC) emerged as the single largest party in Jammu after capturing 43 of the 90 seats up for election.
Though the Congress won five seats in Kashmir, bringing its total to six, it was nearly swept away in Jammu, where it only managed to gain one seat in the Rajouri district. It is said instead of focusing on Jammu, Congress was more interested in the Kashmir Valley.
BJP fielded 25 Muslim candidates but all of them bit the dust. BJP’s all the B-team parties also met the same fate. Altaf Bukhari and Ghulam Nabi Azad and others were rejected. While Sajjad Lone somewhat scraped through.
Engineer Abdul Rashid, who made headlines by defeating Umar Abdullah from the Baramullaparliamentary seat in Lok Sabha election from prison, failed to make any impact in the assembly. He was released from the jail on the eve of the election. His Apni Party drew a blank as his release was seen as an attempt to split the vote.
Beyond the Jawahar tunnel, the BJP, having manipulated the social and political landscape of J&K, following the repeal of Article 370 by enacting numerous new laws and regulations within the Union Territory, was able to maintain its hold on Jammu, where it garnered 29 seats.
Of them, four BJP candidates emerged victorious with a margin of less than 2,000 votes. Shagun Parihar emerged victorious with a lead of 521 votes, defeating Sajjad Ahmad Kichloo of NC from the Chenab Valley’s Kishtwar assembly constituency.
The NC vice-president accurately predicted that J&K BJP president Ravinder Raina would lose to Surinder Kumar Choudhary in the election.
According to Kashmir Times editor Anuradha Bhasin, in the name of national interest both Congress and BJP always played with sentiments of Jammu. This time also people of this region swayed by the narrative overlooking their interest, she said.
The way delimitation was done in the UT after revocation of Article 370, around 39 seats carved out to favour non- Muslim candidates.Before the delimitation, the Kashmir Valley region had 46 seats, the Jammu region 37 seats, and Ladakh region 4 seats. Now 43 seats are in the Jammu division and 47 seats are in the Kashmir division. Commenting on the delimitation exercise, a senior journalist from Kashmir said in the Lok Sabha Muslim MPs are just 24. As per the population, it should have been 74.In J&K minorities are 28% and should have got 28 or 29 seats, but got 39 seats (41%) in the assembly.With this mathematics, Muslim MPs in Lok Sabha should also be around 200. If they implement this formula all over India, Kashmir will accept this formula with open heart, he said.