A Congress Party rally in Haryana
By G Krishna Mohan Rao*
With the Haryana assembly polls rescheduled for October 5, 2024, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is struggling to keep its act together in the face of the anti-incumbency of its 10-year rule in the state. The BJP is facing several negative factors including the change of Chief Minister in the last leg and factionalism as well.
The Congress Party is trying to exploit the anti-incumbency factor and is gearing up the party machinery to win as many seats despite factional politics in the party. The Congress supporters are on an overdrive and have been predicting the party will win over 70 out of 90 seats.
However, in a significant development today, the Congress Party’s high command has given a direction to the Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) to have an alliance with the Aam Admi Party (AAP) in the coming elections in the state and hold official-level talks. The PCC as well as senior Congress party leaders including former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had been opposing any truck with the AAP. Party sources said that senior party leader Rahul Gandhi wanted the AAP to be carried along in order to consolidate the INDIA bloc at the national level. The Congress leadership is confident of winning the election on its own but does not want to take any risk of division of votes in favour of the BJP. The AAP also seemingly put pressure on the Congress Party for a pre-poll understanding.
As part of the deal, sources said, informal and behind-scenes negotiations were already going on and today the Congress Party general secretary K C Venugopal and the AAP MP Raghav Chadha were expected to hold official level talks to work on the nitty-gritty of seat sharing. Though the AAP is demanding about 10 seats in the 90-member assembly, the Congress leadership does not want to give more than five to six seats to the AAP. Sources said that the Congress wanted to give only weak and not winnable seats to AAP. According to them, the two parties were confident of a pact and the discussion was around the specific constituencies that the AAP was seeking, which was different from the list of seats that the Congress Party was offering it.
It may be recalled that during the recent Lok Sabha elections both the Congress and the AAP contested together under one alliance in Haryana and Delhi. In Haryana, the Congress Party contested 9 Lok Sabha seats while the AAP, the remaining one seat. In Delhi, the AAP contested for 4 Lok Sabha seats while the Congress for three seats.
Haryana is next door to Delhi and, naturally, the coming Assembly elections would be keenly watched by the residents of the national capital as well, as many of them also have houses in nearby Gurgaon and Faridabad.
Meanwhile, what is working against the BJP is factionalism but more than that its own mistakes of creating a negative perception. The things that happened in the past week could go against the saffron brigade. Firstly, by writing to the Election Commission to change the polling date, the BJP created an impression that it was reluctant to go into the contest. Earlier, the polls in the state were scheduled for October 1, but following the request it was rescheduled for October 5, 2024. Secondly, the public declaration of the case against Bhupinder Singh Hooda, where the Enforcement Directorate gave a press release stating that his assets had been attached, has led to a perception that this was being done because the BJP was losing. Naturally, properties get attached if such a case is registered but the timing of it, so far as politics goes, was perhaps not correct.
The farmers’ agitation has also left its impact, and the BJP nominees might find it difficult to enter the rural areas where the resentment against the Central Government is very pronounced. Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini has urged the people to bring back his party and ensure that there was a double-engine government which would lead to further development of Haryana.
The issues are manifold and unemployment and rising prices have been matters of great concern for the middle classes. Congress leader Hooda has repeatedly accused the BJP of misgovernance in the past decade and has flagged the poor law and order situation in the state as also a major issue. On top of that several BJP state leaders have openly expressed their resentment against the leadership and thus their participation could be half-hearted.
In the final analysis, both the rival parties are busy finalising the tickets. Sources said that the BJP is expected to change quite a few sitting members. On the other, the faction-ridden Congress Party has undertaken a massive exercise under the screening committee chairman Ajay Maken. The screening committee had several rounds of meetings and is yet to declare the list of selected candidates.
*Senior journalist
