Haryana elections: SC seats hold key, as votes lost by BJP went to Congress in LS polls Premium

Major accrual in the Dalit vote in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls gives the Congress a fillip

Congress candidate from Julana assembly constituency Vinesh Phogat before she filed her nomination papers for Haryana Assembly elections, in Julana

In the run-up to the Haryana Assembly elections, which are scheduled to be held on October 5, we look at recent electoral contests in the State.

Haryana has been governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since 2014. In recent elections, the State has followed a pattern corresponding to the nature of the contest — Assembly or parliamentary.

In the Lok Sabha elections held in 2019 and 2024, the contests in the Assembly segments were largely bipolar (Table 1) and mostly between the BJP and the Congress (Table 2B).

In the tables, “GE” refers to general elections, while “AE” refers to Assembly elections.

Table 1 shows the percentage of seats across various levels of competitiveness.

The BJP won 58.2% of the popular vote in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The high level of support for the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Haryana was well in line with the vote shares that the party and its allies gained in the Hindi heartland (53.88% and 196 wins in 225 seats). The BJP led in 79 Assembly segments out of the 90 (88%) in Haryana (Table 2A).

Table 2A shows the seat share (in %) of BJP, INC, and other parties.

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Table 2B shows the vote share (in %) of BJP, INC, and other parties.

However, in the Assembly elections held less than five months later, the BJP’s vote share dropped to 36.5%. The Congress was not a beneficiary of the drop in vote share; the beneficiaries were regional parties such as the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) and the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), among others. They garnered the bulk of the remaining 21.7% points, helping them win 35.4% of the votes. Seat-wise, the BJP had to be satisfied with only 40 seats and had to be dependent on the support of the JJP to run the government.

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Much water has flowed under the bridge in the last five years. The JJP is no longer in an alliance with the BJP. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the contest was back to being largely bipolar (Table 1). The votes of the regional parties and others were limited to only 10.2%, a fall from 13.3% in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and a significant drop from 35.4% in the 2019 Assembly polls. The beneficiaries of the drop in vote shares were both the BJP and the Congress (an increase of 9.6 points and 15.6 points, respectively) in comparison to the 2019 Assembly elections. In seat terms, the national parties won five each in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Table 3A shows the percentage of seats won by BJP across various vote margins.

Table 3B shows the percentage of seats won by INC across various vote margins.

The Congress’s vote share (43.7%) was the party’s best showing since the 1989 Lok Sabha elections, when the party won 46.1% of the votes, and the 2005 Assembly elections when the party garnered 42.5% of the votes. A significant increase in the votes it received in seats reserved for Dalits — a whopping 51.7% (Table 4) — helped the party dramatically increase its vote share. For the first time since 2014, the Congress gained a lead over the BJP in Scheduled Caste reserved seats.

Table 4 shows the percentage of votes secured by BJP and INC across various vote margins.

That the Congress is hopeful of a wind behind its sails in the 2024 Assembly polls is understandable as Table 3A and Table 3B show — the party led by a margin of over 25% votes in 27% of the Assembly segments in the Lok Sabha elections in contrast to the BJP’s corresponding number falling to only 9.1% (from 58.2% in 2019).

Both the JJP and the INLD depend on the support of the agricultural Jat community. The BJP in its choice of Chief Ministers during the decade-long rule — Manohar Lal Khattar and later, Nayab Singh Saini — has sought to consolidate the non-Jat Other Backward Classes vote while the Congress, under the leadership of Bhupender Hooda, expects to make a dent in the Jat vote bank as well.

If the Congress retains the Dalit support base that it received in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, it could make a splash in the upcoming Assembly elections as well.

We will take a closer look into these variables in forthcoming Data Points.

Source: Election Commission of India, Ashoka University

vignesh.r@thehindu.co.in

srinivasan.vr@thehindu.co.in

Published - September 18, 2024 08:00 am IST