Chandigarh: Tuesday’s Lok Sabha election results came as a crude shock for the ruling BJP in Haryana with the state’s principal opposition party, Congress, which had not won a single seat in the previous general election, snatched five seats from BJP which had won all the 10 seats in 2019 polls.
In 2014 too, the Congress had won only one seat, the BJP seven seats and the two seats had been won by Indian National Lok Dal.
A decade later, the Congress has now staged a comeback and won five of the total 10 seats – Rohtak, where its three-term MP Deepender Hooda has defeated the four-time MP Arvind Sharma of BJP by a massive margin; Sirsa, from where its stalwart Kumari Selja has trounced BJP’s Ashok Tanwar and Sonepat from where Congress’ Satpal Brahmachari defeated BJP’s sitting MLA Mohanlal Badoli.
Likewise, from Hisar seat, Congress’ Jai Parkash defeated BJP’s Ranjit Chautala and in Ambala, Congress’ sitting MLA Varun Chaudhary defeated the widow of BJP veteran Rattan Lal Kataria.
The BJP, on the other hand, has succeeded in retaining its Karnal seat from where former chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar has defeated Congress’ greenhorn Divyanshu Buddhiraja, by a massive margin.
Likewise, BJP stalwart and Union minister Rao Inderjeet Singh, has defeated cine celebrity Raj Babbar in Gurugram seat, BJP senior leader Krishanpal Gurjar defeated Congress’ Mahender Partap Singh in Faridabad and sitting MP Dharambir Singh has defeated Congress’ Rao Dan Singh in Bhiwani-Mahendergarh seat, and business tycoon Naveen Jindal has defeated AAP state president Sushil Gupta from Kurukshetra seat.
Meanwhile, according to media reports, the Congress has also remarkably increased its vote share from 2019’s 28% to 43% this general election while the BJP on the other hand has come down to 46% this election from 2019’s 58% vote share.
Also, candidates of the regional parties, namely Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) and the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) which had also fought on 10 and seven seats, respectively, were set to lose their security deposits.
Meanwhile, in the Karnal assembly by-election chief minister Nayab Saini was ahead with over 41,000 over Congress Tarlochan Singh. It may be recalled that Saini had replaced Khattar as chief minister in March this year, a few days ahead of the Lok Sabha election announcement when the latter decided to fight the parliamentary polls from Karnal.
