Major Setback for Congress in Haryana: Nayab Singh Saini’s Bold Move Boosts BJP’s Fortunes
The grand old party was hoping for a landslide, considering its performance in the Lok Sabha seats in which it won 5 parliamentary seats. However, the BJP has staged a major comeback under the leadership of Nayab Singh Saini.
If early trends hold, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will script history by returning to power for a record third term in Haryana. The saffron party, which once looked out of the race, has surged ahead of the Congress despite 10 years of anti-incumbency. The grand old party was hoping for a landslide, considering its performance in the Lok Sabha seats in which it won 5 parliamentary seats. However, the BJP has staged a major comeback under the leadership of Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini.
The Congress was banking on anger of farmers, wrestlers, and youth who were upset with the agniveer scheme. However, none of that seemed to have worked to a point where they could damage the party’s prospects.
Saini, who took office just months before the elections, appears to have repaired perceived damage done by his predecessor, Manohar Lal Khattar – who many saw as someone under whose leadership the saffron party had no chance of winning the state back. If BJP wins, the credit will go to not just the party’s strategy of consolidating non-dominant castes’ votes but also to Chief Minister Saini, who worked hard to contain the slide following a major reverse in the Lok Sabha elections.
Soon after taking over as chief minister, Saini launched a flurry of schemes to help poors in his attempt to win back their votes. For instance, he announced an initiative for underprivileged people to avail free medical tests in empanelled private laboratories, besides government hospitals. “This landmark decision will benefit millions of people,” an official statement said after the launch of the scheme.
Almost every polls had written off the saffron party as the Congress was most favoured to win this round soon after the Lok Sabha results. If the saffron party returns to power, it will be history in Haryana as no other party has achieved the third term in a row.
The BJP also deployed its senior hands – Dharmendra Pradhan and former Tripura CM Biplab Deb – in Haryana to revive its fortune. Pradhan and Deb worked on social engineering and struck a caste arithmetic balance. Reports also suggest that the saffron party propped up several independents to hurt Congress.
As per trends at 11:45 am, the BJP is leading on 50 seats, up by 10 seats from its previous tally, but a massive surge for a party, which stared at defeat just a few weeks ago.
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