The BJP secured a thumping victory in Haryana, clinching not only its highest-ever seat tally but also a solid vote share of 40 per cent, the highest in over a decade. The BJP defied exit poll projections by political pundits who had written off the BJP. The Congress was humbled and Rahul Gandhi’s divisive caste-centric politics was thoroughly rejected and rightfully so.
According to the Election Commission, the BJP won 48 out of the 90 seats in Haryana, setting the stage for a third straight term in office. In Jammu and Kashmir too, the BJP put up a stellar show, securing 29 out of the 90 seats, with the Congress reduced to measly single digits, while the National Conference (NC) got a majority. The BJP’s success in Haryana has once again endorsed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tireless appeal, unrelenting popularity and if anything, the Modi juggernaut has only become bigger and more energised.
On the other hand, Congress’ massive setback has dashed the little hopes it had of capitalising on the modest gains that it made during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The BJP’s victory in Haryana is indeed a historic win for PM Modi and his charisma that cuts across demographic divides and caste-based social groupings, helping to convert anti-incumbency into pro-incumbency. To win for a third time in Haryana, after being in power for 10 long years, is a remarkable feat by any yardstick.
The credit must also be given to BJP karyakartas who put up a tremendous fight when large parts of the left-liberal ecosystem peddled all kinds of falsehoods about the Modi magic being on the wane. In fact, the BJP’s margin of victory this time was significantly more decisive than in the 2019 Assembly elections. This time, 34 out of 48 seats were won with a margin of over 10,000 votes, compared to 25 out of 40 in the 2019 elections. Furthermore, the BJP retained 26 of the seats it had won in 2019, with the party’s overall vote share rising to 40 per cent in 2024, up from 33 per cent in the 2019 Assembly elections.
The win in Haryana will provide huge momentum for the BJP in the upcoming Maharashtra and Jharkhand elections. The BJP changed the chief minister in Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Karnataka and Tripura ahead of the Assembly elections. Out of these four states, the party managed to retain three. But the real icing on the cake is Haryana, where once again the change of guard, with Nayab Singh Saini replacing ML Khattar barely a few months back, has clearly borne rich dividends. To the BJP’s credit, calculated risks to beat fatigue and incumbency issues have largely worked. Risk-taking, however, is a double-edged sword that cuts both ways. And this is where the Modi-Shah duo needs to be applauded for never shying away from batting on the front foot.
The BJP, thanks to PM Modi, has become the first party to score a hat-trick in the political history of Haryana. The saffron party also won the Gohana Assembly constituency for the first time since independence.
The rise of the BJP cannot be attributed to the decline of the Congress alone. The BJP’s victory is, in fact, due to multiple factors, the foremost being the politics of development and good governance that have been the hallmark of Narendra Modi in his last 23 years of public service.
Let’s see how Haryana evolved in the last 19 years under Modi and the BJP.
Today, Haryana is the second-largest contributor of food grains to India’s central pool and accounts for more than 60 per cent of the export of Basmati rice in the country. Haryana is the third-largest exporter of software and one of the preferred destinations for IT/ITeS facilities. As per the advance estimates for 2024-25, the state’s GSDP at current prices has been estimated at over Rs 12.5 lakh crore. The state’s GSDP expanded at a CAGR of 9.39 per cent between 2015-16 and 2024-25. Merchandise exports from Haryana touched $12.06 billion in FY20. It eventually hit a new high of $17.66 billion in FY24.
Haryana is also host to many large automotive players. The state produces two-thirds of India’s passenger cars, 50 per cent of tractors, 60 per cent of motorcycles and 50 per cent of the country’s refrigerators. Haryana is among the leading states in terms of IT exports. The export of electrical machinery and equipment for Haryana touched $462.5 million in FY21, which is not a mean achievement. As of May 2024, Haryana had a total installed power generation capacity of 13,609.40 MW, comprising 6984.24 MW under private utilities, 2,929.30 MW state utilities and 3695.86 MW Central utilities.
The BJP government offers a wide range of fiscal and policy incentives for businesses. Moreover, it has sector-specific policies, particularly for IT and tourism. According to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), cumulative Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows in Haryana stood at $1.91 billion in FY24 and was $9.73 billion between October 2019-March 2024. The state has also taken several steps to develop industrial infrastructure to achieve consistent economic growth, thanks to the BJP’s “double engine sarkaar”.
Since the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP has seen staggering success in any direct fight with the Congress. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, for example, the BJP had a strike rate of over 90 per cent against the Congress where both parties were in a direct contest. Despite Congress’ false bravado about Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, even in the 2024 general elections, the BJP’s strike rate was a hefty 70 per cent vis-a-vis Congress. In the last two years, the Congress did manage to win back Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka in a direct fight with the BJP, but that had nothing to do with Rahul Gandhi and these victories were largely the result of regional satraps of the Congress who managed to get their act together.
Interestingly, the “khatakhat” model of brazen freebies, poor deliverables, rising debt burden and rollback of welfare schemes in Karnataka and Himachal have contributed in no small measure to Congress’ Haryana debacle. The voters of Haryana wisened up to the harsh truth about how an incompetent Congress regime has thrown Karnataka into the throes of lawlessness, while in Himachal, the Congress government is not even able to pay salaries to government employees on time, pushing the hilly state into the throes of bankruptcy.
With the October 8 results, it is clear that the BJP is the only party which has a formidable pan-India presence. As for the AAP, it failed to get even a single seat in Haryana, despite Kejriwal’s tall claims, getting merely 1.7 per cent of the votes. Rejection of Kejriwal’s brand of politics is not surprising given that under AAP, farmers of Punjab have not got what was promised to them. The drug abuse problem also continues and Punjab’s back-breaking debt burden has left AAP with no funds or even the willpower to move ahead with any conceivable development agenda.
Punjab is being systematically looted; first, it was by the erstwhile Congress regime and now by the AAP. Clearly, after the debacle in Haryana, regional parties will now try to drive a harder bargain with the Congress in the upcoming Assembly polls in Maharashtra and Jharkhand. The Congress’ cup of woes is only going to brimmeth over.
In Karnataka, the Congress leadership is having a tough time trying to resolve the tussle between Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar. In Himachal Pradesh, the Congress high command faced a similar dilemma in choosing between two strong contenders – Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and Pratibha Singh, wife of former party chief minister late Virbhadra Singh. In Maharashtra, the Congress is seeing an internal fight between its Mumbai chief Varsha Gaikwad and other senior leaders who feel sidelined, in a grim reminder of what played out between Bhupinder Hooda and Kumari Selja. Things between Uddhav Thackeray’s UBT and Rahul Gandhi’s Congress are not hunky-dory either.
Not too long back, Rajasthan served as the biggest example of how rivalry between two state leaders put the Congress on the back foot. The party picked Ashok Gehlot as Chief Minister in 2018, ignoring the claims of Sachin Pilot. Interestingly, for the Congress, nothing much has changed in Rajasthan between 2018 and 2024. Rahul Gandhi is unable to manage internal dissensions and the Haryana debacle, like the Rajasthan loss, showcases how Rahul is a poor leader with an equally poor track record in terms of organisational skills.
Coming back to the BJP, Nayab Singh Saini was the first OBC leader to have become the chief minister of Haryana when he replaced ML Khattar in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. While the Lok Sabha elections reduced the BJP’s tally in Haryana, in the Assembly elections of 2024, the BJP rose like a phoenix, learning how to navigate deftly the challenges thrown at it by an entire ecosystem of political pundits, Youtubers and social media influencers owing allegiance to Rahul Gandhi and his falsehoods, and emerging victorious.
The message from Haryana is clear – the people of Haryana, including farmers, soldiers, wrestlers, sportspersons, youth, women, businessmen, entrepreneurs, salaried class, et al, have all chosen to repose their undying faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his politics of inclusivity and equity. Modi is indeed the great unifier-in-chief for more reasons than one.
Sanju Verma is an Economist, National Spokesperson for BJP and Bestselling Author of “The Modi Gambit”. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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