Why Haryana is all set for a power shift

There are three possible outcomes of the upcoming assembly election in Haryana.

Scenario A: the election winds blow against the ruling BJP and the Congress forms the next government with a clear majority.

Scenario B: the winds of change turn into a storm, giving the Congress a thumping majority.

Scenario C: a full-blown tsunami sweeps the Congress to power, leaving the BJP and other parties in the dust with at best a handful of seats between them.

This is not a political forecast. I’m not trying to assess which of these scenarios will come true or how many seats each party will win. This is plain political common sense and common knowledge in the state. There is no doubt that this is a straight contest between the BJP and Congress.

Unlike previous assembly elections, parties like Abhay Chautala’s INLD, Dushyant Chautala’s JJP or the BSP or AAP, or Independents are not expected to play a big role. It is also widely understood that the Congress has a clear edge in this direct contest.

Regardless of which of these scenarios plays out, the Congress looks set to form the next government. It’s one of those elections where the outcome was known even before the polls were officially announced. Sure, the selection of candidates, the party manifestos and the strategies parties adopt during the campaign can influence the final seat tally, but these factors will not change the course of this election.

The broad direction of this election was set a year or so ago when one could see a glaring and growing disconnect between the people and the ruling party. In fact, the disenchantment set in with the BJP’s return to power for a second term—when Dushyant Chautala’s JJP did a volte-face to prop up the BJP government.

The state government’s legitimacy eroded irretrievably during the farmers’ protest, when it spared no effort to suppress the agitation and ran a vicious smear campaign against the movement.

Meanwhile, the farmers stood united— and when the central government was ultimately forced to bend to the farmers’ will, the Haryana government lost not just people’s respect but, in a sense, the popular mandate. Whatever scraps of legitimacy it may still have clung to were squandered during the wrestlers’ protests of early 2023. The dreams of the state’s rural youth have been crushed by rampant unemployment, and hare-brained ‘solutions’ to the problem like the Agnipath scheme. So, by the time the elections rolled around, the farmers, the soldiers, the wrestlers had already knocked the BJP out of the game.

The political shift in the state was clear in the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year. In the 2019 elections, the BJP had a 30 per cent lead over the Congress, but this time that gap vanished. Both parties won five seats each, and the Congress– AAP alliance polled more votes than the BJP. Yet, in the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP escaped a big defeat in the state, presumably because a national agenda and a popular prime minister held centrestage.

In these assembly elections, though, there is no hiding from the state government’s record. During Manohar Lal Khattar’s first term, the BJP had built a reputation for reining in corruption and offering jobs based on merit. But in the second term, with Dushyant Chautala as an ally, the government became synonymous with corruption, arrogance and insensitivity. Eventually, the BJP had to remove Khattar.

When the central government was ultimately forced to bend to the farmers’ will, the BJP-led Haryana government lost not just people’s respect but the popular mandate as well.

Nayab Singh Saini, the new chief minister, did make some popular announcements, but it was too little, too late; the people had made up their minds. Against this backdrop, the BJP leadership has tried hard to limit the damage by distributing tickets strategically. But this has only led to more fragmentation within the party.

The Congress too faced infighting during ticket distribution, but it doesn’t seem to have had much of an impact on the ground. Both big parties have released their manifestos, and even the BJP has been forced to address issues like unemployment, the unpopular Agnipath scheme, MSP for farmers... but the manifestos are not making any waves in this election.

The BJP has been left with nothing but its go-to gambit of communal polarisation and caste politics—in this case, pitting Jats against non-Jats. This might impact a few seats but is unlikely to sway the entire state.

In the final stretch of the campaign, all eyes are on the personal popularity of the candidates, local caste equations and various tactical manoeuvres to tilt the scales. While these factors may not change the overall outcome, they will certainly impact the seat numbers.

The party that looks to be in the lead in the final days tends to benefit from a bandwagon effect. If the BJP can partially succeed in its caste polarisation, it may limit the Congress to a simple majority. But if this strategy fails, and the Congress stays the course in the final days, this election could turn into a full-blown storm, sweeping the Congress to a massive victory.