Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had to fight not just his arch rival Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but also leaders from his own Congress to prove his political might in the assembly elections.
In the process, the Congress not only more than doubled its tally but also made it difficult for the BJP to cross the halfway mark.
On Thursday, chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar-led BJP won 40 seats out of the 90 member assembly while the Congress won 31. Interestingly, the Congress managed to translate its vote share of less than 30% to a relatively large number of seats. With 10 seats, Dushyant Chautala-led Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) and 7 independents could play kingmakers.
Congress’ springing back to electoral relevance in Haryana after drawing a blank in Lok Sabha elections just five months ago, marks the return of Hooda’s political dominance. After being voted out of power as chief minister in 2014, Hooda moved out of the spotlight as a young brigade led by former state unit chief Ashok Tanwar, handpicked by former Congress president Rahul Gandhi took centre stage.
Hooda unofficially became the face of the party’s campaign just over a month ago with the removal of Tanwar from the top post. Senior party leaders said that despite the public perception of Congress being a “divided house”, the clincher for improving its performance was turning it into a “local election”.
“In 2014 assembly elections people voted in the name of Modi. There was a groundswell of anger against the BJP’s local leadership and in our micro-level campaigns we focused on raising state- level issues. As the campaign picked up, among a section of voters it also became a Khattar versus Hooda election,” a senior Congress leader from Haryana said requesting anonymity.
“Our tally could have increased significantly if the change in guard had happened much earlier—one month is hardly any time to build a campaign,” another leader associated with the campaign added.
Hooda, who won his Garhi Sampla-Kiloi seat by 58,312 votes, led an aggressive campaign on the ground with public meetings spread across the state. One of the tallest Jat leaders in the state, party leaders feel pitching him to the forefront helped consolidate votes.
“The Congress has performed meticulously under the leadership of Hooda. Things would have been better had the leadership change been done earlier. The social engineering of the Congress worked in the state: deep down, the largest voter base of the Jat community had some resentment against a non-Jat chief minister,” said Ghanshyam Dev, head of the political science department, DAV College, Chandigarh.
“This result is a win-win for the Congress. Even if they don’t form government, they are in a position to be a strong opposition. This result is despite having major leadership issues within the party,” Dev said.
In a way, the former chief minister’s return to political dominance in the state also points out to how the Congress is able to improve on its gains wherever it has a strong regional satrap, much like neighbouring Punjab where it came to power under the leadership of chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh.
