Twitterati pull Amit Shah’s legs: will he buy MLAS on Dhanteras or turn Haryana into UT ?

A week before the counting, Haryana Congress leader Deepender Hooda had confidently tweeted that Haryana would give a fitting reply to the arrogance of chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar. Although the Congress leader had brazenly asked people to save his tweet and compare on counting day with the result, few took his words seriously.

He re-tweeted it after the election. And once again few people took notice and the exit polls of course predicted a BJP sweep in the state and a second term for Mr Khattar.

But it was Deepender Hooda, who had the last laugh today as supporters and party workers mobbed him and his father, former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. They had pulled off what was deemed to be impossible. Watch this video which reflects the mood in the state on Thursday afternoon:

Neither Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who addressed seven election rallies in the state, nor Home Minister Amit Shah, who addressed many more meetings, could prevent the setback. Attempts to politicise the army and the sacrifice of jawans did not help the BJP. The trends and the results at the time of reporting are too close to comfort BJP leaders.

A stunned BJP state chief Subhash Barala has offered to step down and chief minister ML Khattar has been summoned to Delhi by Amit Shah even as BJP spokespersons blamed Khattar for the debacle. It was the chief minister’s wrong selection of candidates, they held, which was responsible for the disappointing result for the BJP.

But BJP supporters and even those who are not, do not rule out the BJP forming the government with the help of both JJP and Congress MLAs, who, they believe, could be won over by strong arm tactics or with money. This prompted a Twitter user to wonder whether Congress+JJP will form the Government in Haryana or the alliance between BJP and the Central Bureau of Investigation!

Conspiracy theorists also had a field day on Thursday afternoon with a tongue-in-cheek comment asking if Amit Shah would reduce Haryana to a Union Territory and continue to rule it from the Ministry of Home Affairs :

Haryana as UT, anyone?

Another user quipped that on Dhanteras this year while others would be buying utensils and jewellery, Amit Shah would be busy buying MLAs. Still others wondered to which resort the MLAs would be herded in

The Haryana results also embarrassed survey agencies, which had predicted a clean sweep for the BJP in the state. A Congress leader asked Yashwant Deshmukh if he ran a survey agency or a gas agency! It elicited a good-humoured response from Mr Deshmukh, who tweeted back to say, “ Gas agency apparently…”.

Yashwant, you run a survey agency or a gas agency?

Gas agency apparently. With a lot of egg on the face. Which is humbling indeed. Will continue my effort to convert into a survey agency. Again.

A few other tweets doing the rounds on Haryana poll result on Thursday:

Kisan and Berozgar” are giving a “Fatkar” to Khattar Sarkar: Congress spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill