New Delhi, Oct 8 (UNI) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday pulled off a historic third straight victory in Haryana, virtually snatching victory from the claws of the Congress which was widely being seen as the potential winner.
The BJP won 48 seats, two more than the magic figure needed to run the government in the 90-seat Assembly of the northern state. The Congress tally was a disappointing 36. The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) took pole position in two seats, while independents coasted to victory in three constituencies. One result was yet to come.
In Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), which held its first Assembly election after the erstwhile state was converted into a Union Territory (UT) and stripped of its special status under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, the National Conference-Congress alliance crossed the majority mark, limiting rival BJP to its stronghold Jammu region. It was also the first Assembly poll in J&K in a decade.
As per the Election Commission of India (ECI), the NC-Congress grouping won 48 seats (NC -42, Congress -6) while BJP secured victory on 29 seats. Jammu & Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (JKPDP) managed to win only three seats. In a big surprise, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) opened its account in the UT by winning the Doda seat. Independent candidates won as many as 7 seats. Communist Party of India-Marxist veteran Mohd. Yusuf Tarigami won from Kulgam, while Jammu and Kashmir People Conference leader Sajad Lone entered the Assembly from Handwara.
An elated Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed his party's return to power in Haryana as the "victory of the politics of development and good governance". Regarding J&K, Modi said he was "proud" of the BJP's performance and said the high turnout here showed "the people's belief in democracy".
National Conference Vice President Omar Abdullah, who is set to take over as chief minister, promised to honour the poll verdict with full responsibility during the next five years.
"The responsibilities have been manifold and it is our duty now to work to prove ourselves able for the verdict with our full
responsibility for the next five years”, said Omar, who won from both the seats he contested - Budgam and Ganderbal.
Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said the alliance government would have a common programme and its top priority would be to restore statehood to J &K.
The election results proved almost all the exit polls wrong in the case of Haryana. Many of the pollsters were also off the mark in predicting the outcome of the J&K assembly election.
The Haryana election result came as a major heartbreak for the Congress as the grand old party was hoping to ride on 'strong anti-incumbency' of BJP's 10-year rule in the Hindi heartland state. The BJP won 47 and 40 seats in the Haryana assembly elections of 2014 and 2019 respectively.
However, even as the BJP inched closer to a majority mark in a complete upturn of the script after early counting showed it trailing by a wide margin, the Congress refused to digest the poll outcome.
Describing the results as "totally unexpected " and "completely surprising", Ramesh claimed before the media that "serious complaints" regarding EVMs and counting had been received from three districts. "Under these circumstances, it is not possible for us to accept the results," he said.
On the other hand, Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the party's "spectacular victory" and said the party had reaped the fruits of the hard work put in by th leaders and workers.
Interestingly, state unit chief of the Congress in Haryana and his BJP counterpart in J&K bit the dust. Haryana Congress President Udai Bhan conceded the Hodal seat by a thin margin of 2,595 votes. Ravinder Raina, the BJP's J&K President, lost from Nowshera by 7,819 votes.
Dushyant Chautala's Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), which in the last Haryana assembly election fought against BJP but later became an alliance partner of the saffron party, failed to open its account this time. UNI NK SSP