Haryana Looks at A High Stake Political Battle

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has announced the Haryana Assembly poll schedule. A foregone conclusion is that the campaigning for these polls is going to be shrill since the stakes for both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress that is trying to make a comeback are high.

Just as the parties, including the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the Aam Aadmi Party, stand at the starting block of this electoral race the question doing the rounds is whether the BJP will be able to retain this citadel north of Delhi?

The 90 Assembly seats in the state go to the polls on October 1 while the results will be declared on October 4.

The BJP has a handicap of having lost five of the 10 Lok Sabha seats just a couple of months ago. It had made a clean sweep in the previous two Parliamentary polls. It will now have to offset the perception that the Lok Sabha polls are a precursor to the things to come in the assembly polls that follow suit in the next three months.

The emerging poll narrative makes for interesting observations where employment and agriculture are taking the centrestage, amidst the social engineering around the caste equations.

Immediately after the announcement of the polls on Friday, former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda came out promising one lakh permanent recruitments in the first year of the formation of the party government in the state. The promise is similar to the senior party leader Priyanka Gandhi starting the poll campaign in Himachal Pradesh almost two years ago reaching out to the employees with the lure of the old pension scheme (OPS).

Accompanied by Haryana Congress President Chaudhary Udaybhan, Hooda claimed the people of the state have made up their mind to oust BJP from Haryana and bring a Congress government. He said, “The Congress has also prepared a road map for the work of the coming government.

“As soon as the government is formed, one lakh permanent recruitments will be done within a year. Jobs will be given on the basis of merit by eliminating paper leak and recruitment mafia from Haryana. Any kind of negligence in the recruitment process and its transparency will not be tolerated. Strict laws will be implemented against irregularities in recruitment.”

The claims around jobs comes after the Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini claimed on Wednesday that the present state government has provided government jobs to 1.44 lakh youths based on merit. “We will soon fill 36,000 more vacancies. Besides this, the government has secured jobs for 1.20 lakh employees working under outsourcing services and the Haryana Kaushal Rozgar Nigam,” he said.

It needs to be pointed out that Haryana is reportedly among the top states in the country with maximum unemployment. Sources on the ground say that this lack of gainful employment is playing out in the form of a law and order deterioration and the menace of drugs raising its head.

Just a couple of days ago the newly elected Congress MP from Sirsa Kumari Selja had stated, “Haryana is becoming the crime capital. Murders, loot and firing incidents are happening daily besides instances of extortion and ransom being demanded at some places.

“Not only this, the criminals are spreading terror by openly firing on establishments. A government which cannot protect the public has no right to remain in power. The public living in terror will show the BJP government the way out of power this time.”

She accused the government of failing to rein in the drug smugglers and said the government should understand that the root of increasing crime is drug addiction and the two are increasing proportionately.

The other promises doled out by Hooda include pension of Rs 6,000 to the elderly, OPS to employees, gas cylinder for Rs 500 besides 300 units of free electricity. He said the Congress gave loan waiver, electricity bill waiver and minimum support price (MSP) to the farmers while the BJP gave them sticks, batons and bullets during the farmers’ movement against the three controversial farm laws and their ongoing fight for a legal guarantee on the MSP.

The BJP has been trying to woo the agrarian community that played a major role in the decrease in its number of Lok Sabha seats. Recently Saini had announced the procurement of all crops on MSP.

On Friday he put a set of questions of Hooda on social media where he asked, “Why were the farmers insulted by giving them a cheque of Rs 2 as compensation? How many crops were purchased at MSP during the Congress government? Why were innocent farmers tortured by forcefully occupying their lands?

“Why was not a single scheme started in the interest of farmers? Which policy was made to protect horticultural crops? What was done to provide water to the farmers' fields for irrigation of crops? When the condition of farmers in Haryana was bad then why did he not take any concrete steps?

“Hooda should tell how much sunflower crop he had purchased at MSP during his tenure? How much millet did Hooda purchase at MSP in Haryana from 2005 to 2014? How much mustard did Congress purchase at MSP in Haryana from 2005 to 2014?

These allegations and counter allegations are only expected to increase in the coming days.

Meanwhile, after the announcement of the polls the INLD leader Abhay Chautala said, “The announcement of elections before time shows the panic of the BJP government in Haryana. If the elections were held on time, a session of the assembly would have to be called and the BJP government did not want to face the session.”

He claimed that the INLD BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party) alliance is the most reliable option before the people of Haryana and the public is fully prepared to form the alliance government. He accused Saini of not doing any work during his 76 days effective stint at the top post.

The AAP has announced that it will be contesting all the 90 seats in the state. Its campaign till now has largely moved around projecting the Delhi Chief Minister and party’s national convener Arvind Kejriwal as ‘Haryana ka Lal’ (son of the soil) and marketing its Delhi model of governance.

The party leaders have been claiming that the AAP will be contesting the polls in alliance with the people of the state. Till now the campaign has been led by Kejriwal’s wife Sunita Kejriwal.

With Manish Sisodia now out on bail it is expected that he will be playing a major role in the party’s poll strategy and campaign as the AAP looks towards increasing its national footprint after it attained the status of a national party.