Did Rebels Deny Congress In Haryana?: A Close Analysis Shows 'Big Role'
A close analysis of the Haryana assembly elections results reveals that one of the key factors why the Congress party lost the state was the damage caused by the party’s rebel candidates.
Several rebels who contested the elections as independents prevented the Congress party’s potential victory in many constituencies. An observation of some of the constituencies where the rebels contested as independents shows that they accumulated a considerable share of votes, damaging the poll prospects of the grand old party. The BJP won 48 seats while the Congress 37 as counting ended on Tuesday.
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One of the key rebels who posed a considerable challenge to the Congress was Chitra Sarwara, the former Congress leader who contested as a rebel independent from Amabala Cantt’s constituency. In the 2019 assembly elections, Chitra Sarwara, who was a rebel back then too, came second to the winner, the six-time BJP MLA Anil Vij, accumulating 52,581 votes, while the Congress candidate Parimal Pari came third with only 14,469 votes. Anil Vij emerged victorious, securing 59,858, giving the perception that the grand old party could have won the seat if Chitra Sarwara was given a ticket.
Another constituency that saw the Congress rebel inflicting the party was Kalka, where Gopal Sukhomajri, who was a ticket aspirant from the Congress, decided to contest independent and made an impressive debut, securing 21.71% of the vote share with 31,688 votes. The independent candidate stunned the BJP and the Congress candidates during the initial round, maintaining the lead. Though he was pushed to the third as counting ended, he could secure 31688 votes against 49729 the Congress candidate secured and the BJP’s 60612 votes. If the Congress could secure the vote shares its rebel candidate accumulated, the party could have won Kalka.
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Harsh Chhikara, another rebel candidate from the Congress decided to face the battle as an independent when the party denied him the ticket from the Gohana constituency. The rebel secured 14761 votes, coming in third, while the Congress’ Jagbir Singh accumulated 46626 and the BJP winner 57,000 votes. In this case, too, the party could have secured the Gohana constituency if it could thwart the emergence of a rebel candidate.
In Uchana Kalan constituency, the Congress candidate and former Hisar MP Brijendra Singh was defeated by the BJP’s Devender Chaterbhuj Attri by only 32 votes. The Congress rebel candidate Virender Ghogharian, who contested the election as an independent, secured 31,456 votes, much to the despair of the grand old party, damaging its electoral prospects in the state.
There are some other constituencies too where the rebel cantates denied the Congress its potential vote share, leading to the saffron party’s return to power for the historic third term.
