Haryana Election 2024: All political parties are busy making strategies to win the Haryana elections. BJP is trying hard to form the government for the third time, while Congress is trying hard to return to power.

Haryana Assembly Election 2024: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition party Congress are the main contenders for power in Haryana, but there is also a third factor here which has the potential to spoil the game of either of the two big parties. It depends on how much support regional parties and independents are able to get in the assembly elections. In the recent Lok Sabha elections, the unity of opposition votes in the state reduced the number of BJP seats to five and the remaining seats went to the account of Congress.

Ruling party leaders hope that now smaller parties will get more votes, as often happens in assembly elections. In the last Lok Sabha elections, BJP won all 10 seats in the state. Congress leaders are confident that in the absence of national issues, the mobilisation of voters who have distanced themselves from the BJP will intensify in the state assembly elections to be held on October 1.

‘BJP will try to make inroads into non-BJP votes’
The alliance of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), former deputy chief minister Dushyant Singh Chautala’s Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) and several independent MLAs who won in 2019 are leaving no stone unturned to make their presence felt in the state. The JJP and INLD (led by Dushyant Singh Chautala’s uncle Abhay Singh Chautala) and independent candidates like MLA Balraj Kundu are mainly supported by the Jats. On the other hand, the BJP believes that they will make inroads into the non-BJP vote. Jats are the largest caste group in Haryana with more than 26 per cent of the population. The BSP’s support is mainly confined to a section of Dalits.

Bhupendra Hooda calls regional parties vote cutters

In a recent interview with PTI-Bhasha, Congress leader and former chief minister Bhupendra Singh Hooda had called regional parties vote cutters. He had said that no one will vote for these parties. JJP got less than one percent votes in the Lok Sabha elections. In the last assembly elections, it got about 15 percent votes and 10 seats. JJP is fighting for its existence as it is now left with only three loyal MLAs, including Dushyant Singh Chautala and his mother Naina Singh Chautala. BJP leaders involved in the assembly election campaign have expressed confidence that as the election date approaches, the party’s traditional non-Jat vote will mobilize, which will help it remain in power for the third time.

BJP can take advantage of factionalism within the Congress

Haryana has 90 assembly seats. Even if the BJP is hoping to benefit from factionalism within the Congress, a matter of concern for the party is that its vote percentage in assembly elections often falls significantly compared to Lok Sabha elections. After winning a majority for the first time in Haryana in 2014, the BJP was reduced to 40 seats in 2019 and formed the government with the support of the JJP. The BJP has appointed Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and former Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb as election in-charge and co-in-charge respectively for the Haryana elections.