A hat trick of flop show, what went wrong for Congress in Haryana

Congress suffered an embarrassing defeat in the high-stakes October 5 Haryana Assembly elections, losing a chance to make a comeback in the state after a decade.

In Short

• Congress failed to consolidate narrative in Haryana, losing to BJP
• Overselling of Hooda factor led to internal factionalism and division.
• Anti-Dalit remark stirred caste consolidation against Congress.

Congress made a blunder in Haryana and missed the chance to consolidate its narrative against Prime Minister Narendra Modi by losing the Assembly elections in the state as the BJP secured a mega hat trick.

What caused the humiliating defeat at a time when pollsters had pitched a comeback for the Congress?

OVERSELLING BRAND HOODA

The party went overboard with the Hooda factor. It seemed that the entire show was being run by the father and son duo -- Bhupinder and Deepender Singh Hooda. With both senior and junior Hooda bagging almost 72 out of the 90 Assembly seats, Kumari Selja scraped through with nine and Randeep Surjewala only two in the ticket distribution, it was a one-sided affair. This endorsed the message that the state would see the return of the Hooda reign if the Congress came to power and thereby the inevitability of a Jat Chief Minister was writ large on the wall.

The BJP, however, was quick to capitalise on coining the "Bapu-Bete ki party" jibe.

In a state where overselling the Jat factor has worked counterproductive for the Congress, the party could have been more careful about not letting the Jat versus non-Jat debate gain momentum.

The state unit was so riddled with factionalism that a war of words broke out even in an extended Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting between Kumari Selja and state president Udhay Bhan, with the former complaining about being kept out of programmes and the state incharge Deepak Babaria siding with the Hooda camp.

Then Rahul Gandhi intervened saying this was not the right platform, and they should settle state issues outside.

The tussle kept simmering as Congress general secretary KC Venugopal wasn’t in the mood to pay any heed and told them to sort it out amongst themselves .

So the divide widened with the Hooda camp versus Randeep Surjewala and Kumari Selja bout out in the open. They charted their own election yatras and press conferences and never did one see a united show with the congress lieutenants all on one stage to send a message of unity.

DALIT ANTAGONISATION

The turning point in the election was the anti-Dalit remark against party veteran and Dalit leader Selja Kumari that stirred the caste consolidation against Congress. The video of a Congress supporter abusing Selja went viral and BJP leaders left no stone unturned to highlight the humiliation of a Dalit leader in the Grand Old Party.

This was when the Congress was hoping that a return of the Dalits to the party’s fold in the Lok Sabha would further enhance its prospects in the Assembly, but did little to nip the controversy in the bud.

As Selja preferred to sit at home for almost 12 days, the party top brass did not reach out to her, let alone vociferously snub her detractors.

This emboldened the anxiety within the Dalit community that the Congress had succumbed to its Jat leaders whose supporters were insulting Dalits and neither Rahul Gandhi nor Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, who also hails from the same community, were doing anything about it.

By the time Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Kumari Selja were brought together on stage in Asandh with Rahul Gandhi, an attempt to control the damage was already too late. The message was not lost to the Dalit community, which had other options with the Bahujan Samaj Party and Azad Samaaj Party alliances in place.

The belated homecoming of another Dalit leader, Ashok Tanwar, did little to assuage the feelings among community members, who had already made up their minds. It was to belittle Kumari Selja that Tanwar, who had switched from almost all parties, was brought in at the last moment. Folks in Haryana understood. In a message, a villager took a jibe at Tanwar joining the party and said, "Ghar ka jogi jog na, bahaar ka jogi jog (A saint from your house is not a saint, but a saint from another house is)."

ALL EGGS IN ONE BASKET

It would not have mattered which camp bagged how many seats if the candidate selections were more transparent and authentic, but the party relied too much on its internal survey. It did little to gather alternate sources of data and ground inputs to cross-check whether the survey was accurate during ticket distribution. The party's internal poll pundit Sunil Kanugolu had delivered punches above his weight in Karnataka and Haryana, and so the party took the risk of putting its eggs in one basket.

A Congress leader unhappy with the ticket distribution alleged, "Sunil Kanugolu’s team did a survey and that became the basis of ticket distribution. Many times, ground inputs can vary, but the party leadership was oblivious. The same survey was being recycled to multiple power centres like the screening committee, the Hooda camp and the party top brass, eventually leading to all of them having the same set of names."

Needless to say, differing voices like Kumari Selja or Randeep Surjewala weren’t a part of either the screening committee or the Central Election Committee (CEC). And so, the only leader being heard was from the Hooda camp.

When things came to a knot in more than 20 seats, a subcommittee was formed.

However, when Randeep Surjewala, Kumari Selja, Captain Ajay Yadav and others red-flagged many candidates in subcommittee meetings, it was already too late and little could be done. It further alienated state leaders that remained confined to their home turfs.

BET ON THE WRONG 'HORSES'

With the hype and hoopla surrounding the elections, the party was over-confident about overthrowing the BJP, with its internal survey projecting almost a 60+ score for the Congress. This added to the complacency that had set in, and eventually the party ended up bungling on more than a dozen seats by betting on the wrong horse.

Speculation is rife that the congress also lost a handful of seats to the whims of the 'Delhi Darbar'. The party lost these seats by formidable margins and in some, Congress candidates came third or fourth.

There were seats where recommendations for close aides and former office bearers prevailed over other factors, including seats like Balalabragrh (Parag Sharma lost by 61,806 votes and came fourth with only 5.92 per cent votes), Bhawani Khera (Pradeep Narwal lost by 21,779 votes), Gharaunda (Virendra Rahore lost by 4,386 votes), Badshahpur (Vardhan Yadav lost by 60,705 votes) and Tigaon (Rohit Nagar lost by 37,000 votes).

Heavy lobbying by different stakeholders had sitting MLAs with corruption charges getting tickets. Applications of sitting MLAs Surendra Pawar, Dharam Singh Chokar and Rao Dan Singh were put on hold with Rahul Gandhi insisting that drawing their baggage could dent the party’s image at large as an anti -corruption crusader. However, all of them ended up contesting and losing.

Then kith and kin with big surnames were given preference to favour dynastic families. For instance, his son, former minister Rao Bansi Singh, Rao Narendra Singh got a ticket from Naranaul despite having lost multiple times in assembly elections. Even son-in-law of former Chief Minister Bansilal. Somveer Sheoran‘s seat was changed and was given a ticket for Badhra instead of Loharu.

UNABLE TO REIN IN REBELS, SMALLER PARTIES

The Assembly elections had become hyper local and were being fought at the micro-level with individual preferences and neighbourhood loyalties gaining prominence.

With the INLD and JJP aligning with the BSP and Chandrashekhar Azad‘s party, respectively, the voters against the BJP had multiple choices if they wanted to vote against it.

More so, as part of the Opposition INDIA alliance, Congress gave one seat to the left and chartered its own territory in the state, leaving the field free for other players to take a chance.

Even the Aam Aadmi party (AAP) was looking to align with Congress and hoped it could well be a start of a fresh chapter after the Delhi debacle in the 2024 Lok sabha elections.

However, despite Rahul Gandhi asking party leaders to show magnanimity and hold proper talks with AAP, nothing materialised.

As Congress leaders blamed AAP for being too ambitious, a senior AAP leader told India Today TV, "We were even ready to contest on five seats, but how can we accept all the leftovers?"

One senior leader privy to alliance talks said the message from the Congress state unit was that "we didn’t need the AAP as we were already winning the elections and the party workers could get demoralised if the alliance happened".

So the smaller players nibbled the anti-incumbency votes away and took the steam out from the congress’s attack on many seats.

What added to the miseries of Congress were the rebels. The party could not rein them in, least of all pacify them to withdraw their candidature, and that damaged Congress in almost a dozen seats.

In Ambala Cantt, BJP leader Anil Vij sang away his worries through the counting day even though he trailed as he was confident that opposition votes would split between Congress rebel Chitra Sarwara and candidate Parvinder Singh Pari. The latter got more votes combined than Anil Vij who had a close finish with 59,858 votes.

The Haryana elections are known to be close-shave wins and almost 50 percent seats in the past three elections have had very close victory margins, yet Congress chose to overlook this important factor.

A testimony of it is the meagre 32 votes that resulted in Congres ‘s Brijendra Chowdhary losing to the BJP candidate, Chatar Bhuj Attri in Uchana Kalan.

It’s the lowest victory margin that magnifies the big mistakes that Congress made in its campaign management.