In the results of the recently concluded general elections for the formation of the 15th Haryana Assembly, the saffron Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), which has been in power in the state for the last 10 years, stunned everyone by winning an unexpected 48 seats achieving an absolute majority in the 90-Member state assembly on its own, while the Congress, Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and independents could win 37, 2 seats and 3 seats respectively.
Although the BJP’s seats have increased from 40 in 2019 to 48 in 2024 and the party is going to form the government for the third time in a row in Haryana, however, the security deposits of BJP candidates have been forfeited in 8 assembly seats including Ganaur, Hisar, Dabwali, Rania, Ellenabad, Meham, Punhana and Nuh assembly constituencies. Out of these eight assembly seats, independent candidates have won in two – Ganaur and Hisar, INLD candidates have won in Dabwali and Rania, whereas Congress candidates have won in the remaining four – Meham, Punhana, Nuh and Ellenabad.
It should be noted that in the general elections held five years ago in October 2019 for the formation of the 14th Haryana Legislative Assembly, the BJP candidates deposits were forfeited in Rania, Pundri and Prithla seats and those three seats were won by independent MLAs who had supported the state government a few days after the formation of the then BJP-JJP coalition government under the leadership of Manohar Lal Khattar in Haryana. However, apart from the above three independents, in the last assembly general elections, independent MLAs had also won on four more assembly seats – Nilokheri, Dadri, Meham and Badshahpur.
In the recently concluded general elections of Haryana Assembly, Congress candidates had to lose their deposits only in 3 assembly constituencies – Ambala Cantt., Tigaon and Ballabhgarh. In the general elections held in October, 2019 for the formation of the 14th Haryana Assembly, the candidates of the Congress party won in 27 assembly constituencies across the state. Deposits were forfeited in Ambala City, Ambala Cantt, Yamunanagar, Shahabad, Nilokheri, Indri, Panipat Rural, Julana, Jind, Uchana Kalan, Narwana, Tohana, Fatehabad, Rania, Sirsa, Uklana, Narnaund, Hansi, Barwala, Dadri, Bhiwani, Ateli, Nangal Chaudhary, Pataudi, Badshahpur, Gurgaon and Sohna.
In the three assembly constituencies in Haryana where Congress party candidates lost their deposit, it happened because three party leaders rebelled and contested the election as independents against the party candidate after the denial of ticket from the Congress on all three seats. Chitra Sarwara, daughter of Chaudhary Nirmal Singh, who has become a Congress MLA for the first time from the Ambala City seat, contested the election as an independent candidate from Ambala Cantt. Although she lost to BJP’s Anil Vij by 7277 votes, Chitra secured much more votes than Congress candidate Parwinder Pal Pari from Ambala Cantt. Pari could get just 14469 votes whereas Chitra got 52 thousand 581 votes.
Similarly, Sharda Rathore, who turned rebel after not getting Congress ticket from Ballabhgarh seat of Faridabad district, who was also a Congress MLA twice from this seat from 2005-2014, also contested the election as an independent this time in which she may have lost to BJP’s Moolchan Sharma by 17730 votes, but Sharda got much more votes than Congress candidate Parag Sharma. Sharda got 44076 votes whereas Parag got only 8674 votes. Similarly, in Tigaon VS seat of Faridabad district, Lalit Nagar, who rebelled after not getting a Congress ticket, and who was also a Congress MLA from this seat from 2014-2019, contested the election as an independent this time, in which he certainly lost to BJP’s Rajesh Nagar by 37401 votes, but Lalit got more votes than Congress candidate Rohit Nagar. Lalit Nagar got 56828 votes while Parag got only 21656 votes.
In this regards,Punjab and Haryana High Court Advocate and political-election analyst Hemant Kumar said that the interesting thing is that
Representation of People Act, 1951 i.e. R.P. According to Section 158 (4) of the Act, if a candidate does not win an election, then he must get more than one-sixth of the total valid votes cast in that election, i.e. more than 16.66 percent, to save his or her security deposit.
Currently, the security deposit for candidates from unreserved category in assembly elections is Rs 10,000, while for SC and ST (Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe) category candidates it is Rs 5,000. Not only this, votes cast in favour of NOTA are not considered valid for calculating 16.66 percent votes for the defeated candidates during the counting of elections and these votes are deducted from the total votes cast.
