In Haryana, the State Assembly polls have witnessed victories with vote margins as low as 0.008 percent and as high as 64.05 percent.
The small state of Haryana, which goes to assembly polls on October 21, showcases an interesting trend of electoral contests going right down to the wire and also, witnessing widest victory margins.
The classic case of ‘closest election’ in Rai assembly constituency (Sonipat district) from where Congress MLA Jai Tirath Dahiya had won by just three votes against his rival Inderjt Dahiya of Indian National Lok Dal in 2014 assembly polls, still remains afresh in people’s mind.
Winning ‘by a whisker’, Jai Tirath had entered the books of records for lowest margin victory but his election victory became controversial only recently with the Punjab and Haryana High Court declaring his election as ‘void’.
Interestingly, the HC verdict came at the fag end of Jai Tirath’s term in September when the Election Commission had already declared the October 21 Haryana Assembly polls. The Court had stated, “It has been proved that nine void votes were cast in favour of the returned candidate (Jai Tirath) and two void votes were cast in favour of the petitioner, Inderjit.
After the deduction of the void votes from their tally, valid votes polled by the returned candidate were 36,694 and the votes polled by the petitioner were 36,698.”
Another instance of lowest victory margin in Haryana was witnessed in 1982 assembly polls when the BJP’s candidate Bhagmal (20981 votes) had won by just 10 votes against his Congress rival Parbhu Ram (20971 votes) from Sadhaura (SC) assembly seat.
Yet another interesting case is of Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Ramesh, who had defeated his ‘namesake’ Ramesh Kumar Rana of Samta Party by just 11 votes on Gharaunda assembly constituency in the 1996 assembly elections.
Gharaunda assembly seat in the state has an exception of witnessing three election victories with lowest margins in various elections so far.
INLD’s candidate Rekha Rana had defeated independent Jai Pal Sharma by just 21 votes from the constituency in 2005 assembly polls. Similarly in 1968, Haryana’s Gharaunda assembly constituency had seen closest contest, with the Bharatiya Jan Sangh’s Randhir Singh snatching the seat from Swatantra party’s Rulya Ram by just 12 votes.
Two assembly constituencies namely Narnaund and Rohat had recorded the lowest victory margin i.e 38 votes each in 1991 assembly polls. Congress’ Hukam Singh had managed to taste the victory against his rival Janata Party’s Mohinder Singh in Rohat assembly constituency while JP’s Verender Singh had defeated Congress’ Jaswant Singh from Narnaund by 38 votes.
In 2009 elections, the lowest victory margin was recorded in Dadri constituency, from where Haryana Janhit Congress’s Satpal had defeated his rival Rajdeep of INLD by 145 votes.
While the lowest victory margins clearly outline the importance of every single vote in the elections, the state has also registered record highest victory margins.
BJP’s Umesh Aggarwal, who has been denied ticket to re-contest from Gurgaon assembly constituency had recorded highest ever winning margin of 84095 votes in Haryana assembly polls.
He was polled 106106 votes against his INLD’s rival Gopi Chand Gahlot in 2014 assembly elections.
Making his poll debut from Karnal assembly seat in 2014, Manohar Lal Khattar, Chief Minister of Haryana had registered victory in style by recording second highest victory margin of 63773 votes against an independent candidate Jai Parkash Gupta.
The longest serving Chief Minister of Haryana, Bhajan Lal has the distinction of winning three elections with highest margins from Adampur assembly seat. In 2005, Bhajan Lal (86963 votes) won with a margin of 71081 (63.70 percent) against INLD’s Rajesh (15882 votes). In the previous 2000 elections, he had recorded victory with a margin of 46057 from the same seat against BJPs Ganesh Lal while in 1991, Bhajan Lal had won with a margin of 31596 against Janata Party’s Hari Singh.
After a triangular contest between BJP, Congress and INLD in 2014 assembly polls, the state is witnessing a multi-cornered contest this time with BJP, Congress, INLD, Jannayak Janta Party, Aam Aadmi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Loktantra Suraksha Party and Swaraj India in the fray.
With several regional parties adding flavor to the polling season this time, the results on October 24 are likely to throw some surprises in Haryana.
There are a total of 1.83 crore (1,83,90,525) voters including 98.78 lakh males (98,78,042), 85.12 lakh females (85,12,231) and 252 transgender voters in the State.