It is a tough battle ahead for the Congress in Haryana as the party has a lot at stake. The BJP-Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) alliance, Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and BSP, on the other hand, have nothing to lose in the upcoming elections for 10 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
The vote share of Congress in the 2009 and 2004 Lok Sabha polls was an identical 42.13 per cent, as per Election Commission data. The total electorate in the State was 1.23 crore in 2004 which came down to 1.20 crore in 2009.
The Congress had gone it alone in the 2004 and 2009 Lok Sabha polls and won nine seats both the time.
Sonepat seat was bagged by the BJP in 2004, while in 2009 the HJC was victorious in Hisar.
The BJP’s vote share too remained an identical 17.21 per cent in 2004 and 2009, while the INLD maintained to keep its vote share at 22.43 per cent in 2004 and 2009.
Kuldeep Bishnoi's relatively new outfit HJC’s vote share was 10.01 per cent in 2009. The party won the Hisar seat where Mr. Bishnoi drubbed the Congress candidate.
In the past decade, both the BJP and the INLD failed to open their account as both the political outfits entered the electoral battle without forging any alliance.
Before the 2014 general elections, hectic efforts were made at different levels for a tie up between the BJP and the INLD. However, this could not take place and the BJP preferred to go with HJC.
In the 1999 Lok Sabha polls, when the BJP and the INLD forged an alliance and contested five seats each, the Congress had miserably failed to open its account.
While the BJP’s vote share in 1999 was 29.21 per cent, its ally INLD had polled 28.72 per cent votes.
The other major political player, the BSP, had remained a non-starter in Haryana since 1999. Its vote share, however, jumped from 1.96 per cent in 1999 to 4.98 per cent in 2004, which the party retained in 2009.
The ruling Congress is facing strong anti-incumbency in the State, while INLD supremo Om Prakash Chautala and his son Ajay Singh Chautala are cooling their heels in Tihar Jail, Delhi, in connection with a teachers’ recruitment scandal.
The BJP is banking on its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s charisma and its ally HJC is eyeing non-Jat votes as caste equations matter a lot in the Haryana polls.
The ruling Congress is also facing strong anti-incumbency in Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s Rohtak constituency, though it is witnessing massive development on all fronts at the cost of other regions.
The Congress and the INLD have fielded candidates on all 10 seats. The BJP is contesting eight seats leaving Hisar and Karnal for the HJC.
The size of the electorates in Haryana in 1999 was 1.10 crore. It rose to 1.23 crore in 2004 and then fell to 1.20 crore in 2009. At present, the number of voters in the state is 1.55 crore, including 71 lakh women.
In 1999, two women candidates — Sudha Yadav (BJP) from Mahendragarh and Kailasho Devi (INLD) from Kurukshetra — entered the Lok Sabha from the state. The only woman candidate who won in the state in 2004 was Kumari Selja of the Congress from the Ambala seat.
