File photo of a vehicle carrying Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) candidate and former Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala campaigning in the Uchana Kalan assembly constituency ahead of the state assembly elections. This time, JJP received less than 1% of the votes. |Photo credit: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar
It is no surprise that the 2024 Haryana Assembly elections were a close contest between the state’s two main political parties – the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress. But even more surprising was the polarization of the polls, with both parties receiving almost four-fifths of the total voting base. This is the first time in the past three decades that such a situation has occurred, making Haryana yet another example of a duopoly in the country.
In the state’s last six legislative elections, only twice (2009 and 2019) did neither the single majority nor the pre-voting coalition exceed a majority. However, the combined vote share of this year’s winner and runner-up exceeded 70%.
A close examination of the statistical data from the past six elections shows that, absent this election, there was a third player who would have garnered a significant, if not substantial, share of the vote. At least a few times, the other party was just as good as the third player. The third player’s vote share was 5.74% and 5.55% for the Bahujan Samaj Party and Haryana Vikas Party in 2000, 10.36% for the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2005, and 7.4% for the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party. % and 6.73%. BSP in 2009, 20.58% by Congress in 2014 and 14.84% by Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) in 2019.
However, this time independents accounted for a combined 11.64% of the vote, which is not surprising since it was natural that more than 10% would always go to independents who are rebels against established political parties. This time, three independents won. As for non-Indian Bharatiya Janata Party and non-Congress organizations, the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), which once ruled the state, could not get 5% as it had to be satisfied with 4.14%. JJP didn’t get even 1%.
The destruction of JJP confirmed the common adage that history repeats itself. The fate meted by the JJP is again not surprising given the state’s long track record of regional parties. Over the past 55-odd years, the Vishal Haryana Party in the 1960s and 70s, the Haryana Vikas Party (HVP) in the 1990s, and the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) in the late 2000s at one time gathered significant traction; He quickly disappeared from the political scene.
In fact, the HVP, founded by former state chief minister Bansi Lal, came to power in 1996 on a platform of corruption and prohibition, along with its pre-poll ally the BJP, and ousted the Congress from power. As one of Haryana’s famous trio (the other members being Devi Lal and Bhajan Lal), Bansi Lal had a reputation for being a development-minded leader, but at the same time, during his first term, he He also had a bad reputation as a person. Prime Minister (1968-75). The HVP-BJP government in the mid-1990s did not complete its term, and the regional party continued for several more years before merging with the Congress in 2004.
Among all regional parties in the northern states, INLD, which in its earlier incarnation comprised parties like Bharatiya Lok Dal, Janata Dal, Samata Party and Samajwadi Janata Party, has achieved better success than others. I got it. At its inception, the organization was known as Haryana Lok Dal before taking on its current name. For more than 15 years, the party has been one of the major players in the state, with its leader Om Prakash Chautala, son of Devi Lal, in power from 2000 to 2005. Chautala’s conviction in the 2013 teacher recruitment case and the subsequent split in the Devi Lal family led to the formation of JJP, which achieved great success in 2019, but this election has been called a “one-election wonder”. It looked like it had become. Moreover, the INLD and JJP, which once enjoyed considerable support within the community, are facing extinction as the Congress is taking away a huge portion of the Jat vote base.
Another former chief minister, Bhajan Lal, was disappointed after the Congress’ spectacular success in the 2005 assembly elections, when the chief minister’s post went to his internal rival Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Feeling that he had done so, he left the party in December 2007 and decided to become a faction. In 2007, he joined his party HJC along with his son Kuldeep Bishnoi. The HJC had been colluding with the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party, but is now part of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
From the mid-1960s to the early 2000s, the state was known for its three Lals, Bansi Lal, Devi Lal and Bhajan Lal, who individually or collectively dominated the scene and practiced personality-based politics. It was getting worse. Although Chautala has tasted some degree of self-made success, he is in the twilight of his career. The children and grandchildren of the Lal trio belong to different political parties – BJP, Congress and INLD-JJP. But none of them come close to the dominance that the three had. Hooda, a senior Congress leader and former state chief minister, is known these days as a member of the Larus party, but the 2024 judgment shows that over-reliance on certain individuals does not pay off for the party. The party suffered its third defeat in parliamentary elections. continuous time. In the case of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, the change of prime minister in March, replacing Manohar Lal Khattar, who had served with Nayab Singh Saini for nearly nine-and-a-half years, has proven beneficial. Perhaps the state is moving toward a stage in which strong, cohesive organizational networks are valued more than all other factors, including individual leaders.
issued – October 29, 2024 11:21 AM IST
