In the recent Lok Sabha elections, the BJP secured only 4 reserved assembly seats, compared to 11 seats won by the Congress.
With the assembly polls drawing near, Haryana is seeing a lot of political uproar and widened rift among the leaders ruling and opposite factions adding to the woes of their party high command. After the announcement of holding elections a little before time by the Election Commission of India (ECI), political parties are gearing up for the polls. The saffron Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) which has suffered a setback losing five Lok Sabha seats, is constantly churning out a strategy to mark third consecutive victory in the state while the Congress seems hopeful about winning the assembly election with huge a margin.
On the other hand, the parliamentary polls proved to be no less than a nightmare for Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) as all failed to mark victory even on a single seat. Keeping in view the voting pattern witnessed in the recent Lok Sabha election, political parties are brainstorming over election strategy. An important aspect that was seen in the election results was that the saffron BJP had to face the ire of the SC voters due to several factors and in Haryana, the party won less than a quarter of the SC assembly seats in the Lok Sabha elections. Now it is believed that SC voters can play a decisive role in the upcoming assembly elections and the SC vote bank, which is one-fifth of the total voters, can prove to be the deciding factor this time. Apart from this, it is also pertinent to mention that out of the 4 JJP MLAs who have left the party in 24 hours in the two days recently ,Ishwar Singh, Ram Niwas Surjakheda and Anoop Dhanak hail from the SC community and apart from political ambitions, caste equations are also being considered behind these three quitting the party. It is pretty evident from the Lok Sabha election results have revealed that the regional parties
JJP and INLD are continuously are losing electoral hold among the SC voters. The Lok Sabha elections were no less than a nightmare for the both as the deposit deposits of party candidates was forfeited on all the seats. Apart from this, the situation of INLD, which is constantly fighting for its existence for last two decades , was more or less the same in the Lok Sabha elections as the party could not win any reserved assembly seat in the Lok Sabha polls.
BJP, which won 5 seats in the last assembly elections, has won only 4 assembly seats in the Lok Sabha elections, which is less than 25 percent. . Out of the total 17 SC seats , the main opposition party Congress has won 11 seats in the Lok Sabha elections. Apart from this, the results were somewhat pleasing for the party when Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which contested the elections under INDI alliance with Congress, took the lead in two assembly constituencies. Out of the 17 seats reserved for SC community, Congress has won Kharkhoda, Kalanaur, Jhajjar, Bawanikheda, Uklana, Kalanwali, Mullana, Sadhaura, Ratia, Narwana and Hodal seats. BJP has won Nilokheri, Israna, Pataudi and Bawal seats, while AAP took the lead in Shahabad and Guhla Cheeka seats falling in Kurukshetra Lok Sabha.
Regional parties INLD and JJP did not win any reserved assembly seat. How much faith the SC community has shown in the BJP candidates and voted for them, can be gaudged from the statement of Union cabinet minister for state, Rao Indrajit Singh, who could win polls with a small margin and was seen saying to Dr. Banwari Lal, who belongs to the SC community and holds the portfolio of cabinet minister in the Nayab Singh Saini led-BJP Haryana government, in a program after winning the election that Dr. Saab, «You must know how many people from the SC community have voted for me as well as the party in all the Lok Sabha constituencies. In a way, he had targeted the SC community for not casting their vote for the party. In this connection, it has come to light that in view of the current political equations, the BJP is constantly brainstorming on strategies to woo the SC voters in the upcoming assembly elections.
According to the caste data based of Parivar Pehchan Patra (PPP) , there are a total of 1368365 SC families, a sizable chunk in Haryana i.e. 20.71 percent of the total families. If we talk about BC A category families, their number is 1123852 which is 16.52 percent of the total families. If we talk about BC B category families, their number is 869079 which is 12.78 percent of the total population. A total of 72 lakh families in the state applied fo PPP and Out of these, the data of 68 lakh families had been verified last year while about 2.5 lakh families are living in some other state
In the last assembly elections held in 2019 , the main opposition party Congress has won the maximum 7 seats.Balbir Valmiki from Israna in Panipat, Renubala from Sadhaura in Yamunanagar, Varun Chaudhary from Mullana in Ambala, Shakuntala Khatak from Kalanaur in Rohtak, Jaiveer Valmiki from Kharkhoda in Sonipat, Sheeshpal Keherwal from Kalanwali in Sirsa and Geeta Bhukkal from Jhajjar in Jhajjar districts are the Congress MLAs. After this, 5 MLA›s of the ruling BJP including Laxman Napa from Ratia in Fatehabad, Vishambar Valmiki from Bawanikheda in Bhiwani, Banwari Lal from Bawal in Rewari, Satyaprakash Jarawata from Pataudi in Gurugram and Jagdish Nayyar from Hodal in Faridabad contested the polls successfully. While JJP›s Anoop Dhanak from Uklana in Hisar, Ishwar Singh from Guhla Cheeka in Kaithal, Ramkaran Kala from Shahabad in Kurukshetra and Ramniwas Surjakheda from Narwana in Jind won the elections while independent candidate Dharampal Gondar managed to win from Nilokheri. If seen from this perspective, Congress has a strong hold among the SC voters and other parties will try to gain an edge here this time. There are five districts including Faridabad, Panchkula, Mahendragarh, Nuh and Charkhi Dadri districts with no SC seats.
