India Today :
The BJP came back from behind on Tuesday to stop Congress’s celebrations on its tracks and snatch an incredible win for a historic third term in Haryana, defying exit polls’ predictions.
Jammu and Kashmir, too, turned all projections on its head as the state handed a big win to the National Conference-Congress alliance; Farooq Abdullah tapped his son, Omar Abdullah, as the next Chief Minister.
The BJP won 48 of 90 seats in Haryana; the majority mark stands at 46. The Congress won 37 seats.
No party has won a third consecutive term in Haryana since its inception in 1966.
Om Prakash Chautala’s Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), once a powerhouse in Haryana, won two seats, while the Dushyant Chautala-led Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), which aligned with the BJP in 2019, failed to open its account.
In Jammu and Kashmir, where elections to the 90-member Assembly were held for the first time in a decade, the Congress-NC combine won 48 seats, while the BJP secured 29 seats.
Mehbooba Mufti’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) bagged three seats. In something of a surprise, AAP’s Mehraj Malik won in Doda.
NC leader Omar Abdullah, who won in Budgam and Ganderbal constituencies, took a jab at the BJP, saying “those who sought to destroy us were decimated instead”. Asked about government formation, he said to wait till results were fully declared.
The possibility of a hung assembly in the Union Territory has opposition parties apprehensive that the five Lieutenant Governor-nominated MLAs could play a decisive role in government formation.
In Haryana, where exit polls predicted a clean sweep for the Congress, the party’s missteps like banking heavily on Jat stalwart Bhupinder Singh Hooda and the sidelining of Dalit leader Kumari Selja may have cost it the election.
The consoidation of non-Jat votes by the BJP hurt the Congress further. The grand old party focused its efforts on wooing the Jat community and neglected the politically consequential Ahirwal belt, which comprises urban and industrial centres Gurugram, Faridabad, Rewari and Mahendragarh.
The BJP appears set to improve on its 2019 performance, when it won 40 seats and had to partner with the JJP. A key factor that could have contributed to this success is the party’s strategy of fielding fresh candidates and expanding outreach to Other Backward Class (OBC) and Scheduled Caste (SC) communities.