BJP Fails to Get Majority, Are Haryana Results a Repeat of 2009?

Analysts said, if INLD’s Omprakash Chautala had not broken alliance with BJP, they could have formed govt in 2009.

Those who know the politics of Haryana say, at that time, if INLD’s Omprakash Chautala had not made the mistake of breaking the alliance with the BJP, they could have formed state government in the 2009 polls.

(Photo: Arnica Kala/The Quint)

In the Haryana state elections, the voter seems to have handed the Bharatiya Janata Party the same treatment that it did to the Congress in 2009.

THE 2009 ASSEMBLY POLLS

In the summer of May 2009, the UPA led by the Indian National Congress formed the government at the Centre by winning 262 seats. Of the 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana, the Congress had won nine.

At that time, like in 2019, Haryana had a Congress government with Bhupendra Singh Hooda as the chief minister. Similarly, the state would go to polls towards the end of 2014, following the Lok Sabha polls.

The Congress, confident due to its win in the then recently concluded Lok Sabha polls and with a government in Haryana, had said they would win.

Hooda was so confident of Congress’ win that it was announced that elections would be held six months prior to the end of the Assembly’s term. Hence the polls, which should have been held in February-March 2010, were held in October 2009.

The Opposition parties were then at a low. The electoral alliance of Om Prakash Chautala's INLD and BJP had lost all ten seats in the Lok Sabha polls earlier that year, and their morale was low.

INLD LEADERS JOINED THE CONGRESS

Following this there was an atmosphere of tremendous disappointment in the INLD. All INLD veterans, except the Chautala family, had either left the party or decided not to contest the elections.

Opposition leaders were flocking to the Congress.

INLD senior leader Dhirpal Singh refused to contest the elections and veterans like Sampat Singh, Jailasho Saini, Sushil Indora, ML Ranga left their parties and joined the Congress.

SPECULATIONS vs REALITY AHEAD OF 2009 & 2019 STATE POLLS

Political analysts and media surveys were also giving 60-70 seats to the Congress. But when the election results came, all surveys were proved wrong.

The Congress party, which had won all 10 seats in the Lok Sabha polls, was reduced to 35 seats in the 90-member Assembly. They had to break Kuldeep Bishnoi's Haryana Janhit Congress to meet the mark and form the government.

The INLD, which the government thought would lose, won 31 seats, only 4 less than the Congress. The BJP bagged 4 seats.

Those who know the politics of Haryana say, at that time, if the INLD's Omprakash Chautala had not made the mistake of breaking the alliance with the BJP, his party could have formed the government.

Exactly as it is being said now, that had the Congress had a grip on their internal troubles and begun to focus on Haryana right after the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, then it would have been the most likely party to form government.

The BJP won all the ten seats in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls and secured a 58 percent vote share. In the Assembly elections, this vote percentage is estimated to decrease. This goes on to reflect how issues like Article 370, Kashmir and Pakistan were rejected by the public and  local issues of unemployment and inflation dominated their decisions.