The civic elections in Haryana has come as a shot in the arm for the Congress and Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda as Independents backed by the party swept the elections by winning 103 wards out of 144 in the seven municipal corporations. Except for Yamunanagar, Congress backed Independents are likely to become Mayor.
Congress did not contest the elections on party symbol while the BJP and INlD contested it on their respective symbols. Haryana Janhit Congress, an ally of the BJP, did not field candidates in the polls.
BJP won 25 wards and Indian National lok Dal (INlD), the main opposition party in the state remained at third position by winning only 16 seats in these elections. Though Congress candidates didn’t contest on party symbol yet they assisted other congress minded independent candidates to win their seats of their respective wards.
The elections of seven newly created Municipal Corporations Ambala, Panchkula, Yamunanagar, Karnal, Panipat, Rohtak and Hisar were held on June 2. Polling was held for 144 wards.
Both parties INlD and BJP, who considered these elections as semi-final of the upcoming lok Sabha elections 2014, couldn’t get the desired results this time.
Neither INlD could get the sympathy votes for its chief Om Prakash Chautala, who is behind bar along with his son Ajay Chautala and others in JBT Scam case, nor could they get the desired results in the urban vote bank. Even several campaigns including ‘Pol Khol’ also didn’t work in these elections, hence; INlD got only two seats at Ambala MC, followed by four at Hisar, two at Karnal, three at Panchkula, one at Rohtak and four at Yamunanagar MC.
BJP failed to impress as its alliance with the HJC is yet to be accepted by the people of the state. It couldn’t get even a single seat at Hisar MC even though Kuldeep Bishnoi of the HJC is the local MP.
Haryana Chief Minister, Bhupinder Singh Hooda said that the results of the elections have revealed that the people have endorsed the development oriented policies of the state government. Also, they have shown mirror to those opposition leaders who had been issuing baseless statements and making false claims.
Phool Chand Mullana, Haryana Congress president, said that the opposition parties had made tall claims and had described these elections as semi-final to assuming power. With this defeat in the semi-finals, the opposition parties are now out of the race for the final. In case any team loses the semi –final, it automatically gets out of the race to final.
Smarting from the defeat, Abhey Chautala, son of INlD supremo Om Prakash Chautala said the main
competition was between
BJP and INlD as Congress did not fight the polls on party symbol.
The polls come as a shot in the arm for the development politics of Hooda. It also decimated his rivals in the party and their supporters like Union Minister Selja whose candidates lost in the Ambala MC seats.