Haryana Municipal Elections: Why The BJP Won And What It Means For Future

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) performed stupendously in mayoral elections held recently in Haryana and swept all the five municipal corporations of Karnal, Panipat, Yamunanagar, Rohtak and Hisar. The margins of victories in all five cities have worked wonders in energising the karyakartas who were feeling demoralised after their party lost Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh assembly polls.

Until recently, the state unit as well as the party high command were in favour of conducting Haryana assembly polls, scheduled for October 2019, with the Lok Sabha elections in April. But due to 0-3 drubbing in three assembly elections at the hands of Congress, the party suffered from a crisis of confidence. Now, a clean sweep in mayoral elections has injected a desperately needed dose of optimism and the state unit seems prepared to fight the assembly elections with Lok Sabha. It is hoping that the Modi factor will help counter the five years of anti-incumbency of Khattar government to some extent.

How should one read this Haryana verdict? What factors led to BJP’s clean sweep?

Overall, these results aren’t surprising. The BJP is stronger in urban areas compared to other parties. It swept the prosperous Grand Trunk (GT) road belt in 2014 winning 22 out of 25 assembly seats and bagged all three parliamentary constituencies as well. So, victories in Karnal, Panipat and even Yamunanagar shouldn’t surprise anyone.

The second key factor was anti-Jat politics that the BJP has perfected in the state. The Punjabi card was the main pole of this anti-Jat politics in mayoral elections. The party pushed a few casteist advertisements in newspapers unofficially. These claimed how for the first time BJP gave a chief minister belonging to Punjabi community and “If you commit a mistake today, then in another 60 years you will not get a Punjabi chief minister.” However, CM Khattar said neither he nor the party had anything to do with such ads. This was a subtle move by the party. It put out the message it wanted to send while maintaining plausible deniability.

The third factor was Congress not fighting the elections on its “hand” symbol. Rather, various Congress factions were backing independent candidates in different cities - former Congress MP Kumari Selja backed a candidate in Yamunanagar, former CM Bhupinder Hooda backed a candidate in Rohtak, former Congress MP Naveen Jindal and Kuldeep Bishnoi put up a joint candidate in Hisar and so on. In an indirect attack on his party colleague and rival Hooda, Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee President Ashok Tanwar said that “Not contesting on the party’s symbol was the prime reason behind the loss.”

The fourth factor was the split in the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) - the second largest party in the state assembly after the BJP. Though it had significant presence only in Hisar, even there it performed badly because of a divided house as the breakaway faction led by Hisar MP Dushyant Chautala put up its own candidate. INLD’s alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) also proved to be a dud.

The fifth factor was an electoral innovation where people in the cities got an opportunity for first time to vote directly to elect their mayors. So, clean image of BJP candidates also played a role in their wins.

A mix of these five factors which played out differently in different seats did the opposition in and gave the BJP a decisive advantage.

Now, let’s take a look at the five cities individually.

Karnal is the CM’s city and was considered the safest contest for the BJP. Khattar had won Karnal assembly seat with a huge margin of over 63,000 votes in 2014. Perhaps for this reason, the Congress and INLD backed a single candidate to put a united opposition front. Because of it, the BJP’s victory margin was lowest here (only 9,000 votes) out of all five cities. CM Khattar deserves all the credit. He carried the day in a tight contest. He didn’t shy away from playing the Punjabi card directly. In rallies in Karnal, he said, that if caste plays a factor in winning the election, then no one is a bigger Punjabi than him. He also held meetings with traders and personally exhorted them to vote for the BJP’s candidate.

Panipat was also expected to go into BJP’s kitty given substantial Punjabi and Sikh population in the city. But what surprised everybody was the victory margin of around 75,000 votes scored by 25 year old Avneet Kaur whose father has been the mayor of the city in past. In 2014, the BJP MLA had won Panipat city seat by only 53,000 votes. Here, Congress didn’t put much of a fight and relied on a regional city leader for doing all the heavy-lifting.

In Yamunanagar too, BJP succeeded in cobbling together a non-Jat coalition. It invited Delhi BJP chief and Bhojpuri singer Manoj Tiwari to woo Poorvanchali voters. Tiwari held rallies as well as did door to door campaign. Punjabis and traders also voted for the party while INLD-BSP failed to attract Muslim voters decisively to its side. Congress remained a divided house with various factions belonging to Hooda, Selja, Tanwar and Kiran Choudhary working at cross purposes. Not fighting on its “hand” symbol proved costly here too.

In Rohtak, which people wrongly assume to be a Jat-dominated seat, the Punjabi population is 90,000 compared to 55,000 Jats. Here, out of 20 wards, the BJP didn’t field even a single Jat candidate giving a clear and loud message. Its leaders constantly reminded the city’s population how they suffered during the quota agitation in 2016 when shops of baniyas (traders) and Punjabis became the prime target of rioters. Former CM and Rohtak resident Hooda fielded a Punjabi candidate from the city against BJP’s Manmohan Goyal in hope of cornering some Punjabi votes but BJP’s Rohtak MLA Manish Grover, also a Punjabi and CM Khattar proved bigger “Punjabis” than Hooda’s candidate. Hooda didn’t even get enough Jat votes, most of which seemingly went to INLD. The honest image of Goyal also helped him in this direct election.

In Hisar also, the BJP was successful in creating a non-Jat coalition with support from both upper caste and lower sections of the society. Aggarwals and Punjabis supported the BJP who earlier used to back Bhajanlal Bishnoi. SCs and BCs in the city who have traditionally been with Naveen Jindal’s family also seem to have gone with the BJP this time. The INLD got decimated here because of the split into two factions with Hisar MP Dushyant Chautala forming his own party after his uncle Abhay Chautala and grandfather Om Prakash Chautala threw him and his brother out of INLD.

While these results are no indication of how the parties will perform in upcoming assembly and Lok Sabha polls, they do throw some light on emerging electoral realities. These results show:

First, the BJP has succeeded in presenting itself as the sole credible non/anti-Jat pole in Haryana politics. It has strong organisation and good presence in urban centres and prosperous regions of the state most of which lie on GT road belt running from Sonepat city to Panchkula. Throw in the non-Jat demography of this belt and the BJP looks invincible here. It means that the party can hope to win 20 out of 25 seats here if it plays its cards well.

Second, the recent results will make sure that strong regional leaders and imports from other parties like Rao Inderjit Singh will think twice before leaving the party. He has been reported to be discontent for a while now and has held meeting with Dushyant Chautala. Rao Inderjit’s writ runs large throughout the whole Ahirwal belt and he has the electoral wherewithal to deliver around 10 seats to the party’s kitty. If the party handles him well, he could prove to be a great asset in Southern Haryana.

Third, the INLD seems to be heading for complete decimation. In 2014, it won 19 seats and was the second largest party in state assembly. But in 15 of those 19 seats, its margin of victory was less than 12,000 votes. With party splitting into two factions, the biggest beneficiary seems to be Congress in general and Hooda in particular as he is the only big Jat face left standing. He can gain greatly from dwindling electoral fortunes of Chautala clan by playing the Jat card assertively which he is shunning right now like the plague in his bid to present himself as a pan-Haryana statesman above the petty politics of caste.

Fourth, this means that currently both BJP and Congress are in 30-35 seats range. The BJP is facing a dilemma. Should it go for polls with Lok Sabha and capitalise on Modi’s image or should it wait for Modi to win and then go more confidently into the election? There is a gamble in both situations but a lot could happen in 10 months. Currently, the BJP is ahead and has the advantage. It would be wiser for it to call the elections early.