Haryana Assembly polls are scheduled for later this year, and the Bharatiya Janata Party has launched the “Jan Samwad” campaign to connect with the voters, according to senior party leader and Union Minister, Krishan Pal Gurjar. The campaign will feature politicians, ministers and leaders reaching out to people across the ninety constituencies of the Haryana Legislative Assembly. Focusing particularly on youth and women, it is expected that each leader will focus on reaching out to people on the grassroots level. Mr Gurjar has informed the press that each party functionary will be allotted 3 constituencies for the campaign. The party hopes to bring attention to the work done by Mr Nayab Saini, who replaced Mr Manohar Lal Khattar as the Chief Minister in 2023. National-level leaders such as Prime Minister Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP President JP Nadda will also visit the poll-bound state to boost the morale of the party cadre. In addition to the “Jan Samwad” campaign, the party will also feature a “Jan Ashirwad” drive, to seek the blessings of voters.
Lok Sabha results: a mixed bag
The results of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections were a mixed bag for the BJP in Haryana. Compared to its hat-trick of 2019, where the party won all ten seats in the state, this year was surely a disappointment. The party won half, i.e. five seats in the state, with the opposition winning the other five. BJP won the seats of Faridabad, Gurgaon, Karnal, Kurukshetra and Bhiwani-Mahendragarh. It is important to note that former Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar contested from the Karnal seat and won with a sizable margin of 2 lakh votes. As for the Congress, they won in Ambala, Sirsa, Hisar, Sonipat and Rohtak. This shift in the voter’s mood might indicate a wave of anti-incumbency against the BJP, which has ruled the agriculture-centric state since 2014.
Haryana Assembly: loose alliances
The 2019 assembly election saw the BJP falling a few seats short of the majority mark in the Assembly. The party won about forty of the total ninety seats, forcing it to ally with the Dushyant Chautala-led Jannayak Janata Party, which propelled the alliance to the victory line. While all seemed fine for some time, the coalition broke down earlier this year, in March. The JJP is a Jat-dominated party, and with almost one-in-four voters belonging to that community, sour ties between the parties will have a sizable impact on the polls. Mr Saini, on the other hand, is expected to help the party in tapping into the OBC vote bank, which has about 40% of the total voters. Right now, the party hopes that the campaign will win the goodwill of the people of the state, and will bring the party to power for a third term. While it is too early to predict the results of the polls, one can sense a heightened sense of competition between both sides and a tight race.
