A third Congress rebel went on to win. Rajesh Joon, who contested as an Independent from the Bahadurgarh seat after being denied a ticket by the party, won the seat handsomely by 41,999 votes. On Wednesday, Joon joined the BJP.

The Congress also suffered to some extent due to the AAP, its INDIA bloc ally, which may have cornered a vote share of just 1.79 percent but polled enough votes in three seats to pave the way for the BJP to race ahead and helped the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) win in one. The INLD itself played spoiler for the Congress in three seats.

Political analyst Asim Ali told ThePrint that while the Congress and BJP got similar vote shares—39.09 percent and 39.94 percent respectively—in terms of the median vote share, which refers to the vote share minus the outliers where the margins of victory and loss are too high, the BJP had an edge.

“Seen from that angle, the BJP led the Congress by five percentage points. It means that the Independents and the INLD and BSP clearly played a factor. And naturally, the ticket distribution of the Congress, handled by the Bhupinder Singh Hooda faction, will come under question. That resulted in dissidence and the decision of some of these faces to contest independently,” Ali said.

In Ambala Cantt, for instance, the BJP’s Anil Vij scraped through. But it was Congress rebel Chitra Sarwara, who was also expelled by the party, who finished second, losing by a margin of 7,277 votes. The official candidate of the Congress, Palvinder Pal Pari, was placed third, over 45,000 votes behind Vij.

Also Read: Behind BJP’s historic 3rd term in Haryana, grassroots-level cadre, RSS support & Congress hubris

A look at 11 seats

In the closely fought polls, in as many as 11 seats where the Congress finished second, the independent candidate finishing third polled more votes than the party’s margin of defeat. These seats are Kalka, Dadri, Mahendragarh, Tosham, Sohna, Samalkha, Safidon, Rania, Rai, Badhra and Uchana Kalan. But for these candidates, the Congress would have got a comfortable majority.

Among these candidates, Somveer Ghasola and Virender Ghogharian entered the fray as Independents after being denied tickets by the Congress. They were among the 10 leaders expelled by the party last month for “anti-party activities”.

Ghasola contested from Badhra and obtained 26,730 votes. Somvir Singh, the Congress candidate for the seat, lost by a margin of 7,585 votes. Ghoghrian entered the fray in Uchana Kalan, where the Congress’ Brijendra Singh lost by 32 votes.

In Sohna, Javed Ahmed, who had contested the 2019 assembly elections on a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ticket and later joined the AAP, contested as an Independent and got 49,210 votes. The Congress lost the constituency by a margin of 11,877 votes.

In Samalkha, fighting independently, Ravinder Machhrauli, who had won the seat in 2014 and has been briefly in the BJP, too, got 21,132 votes. The Congress lost the seat by 19,315 votes.

In Safidon, which the Congress lost by 4,037 votes, Jasbir Deswal, a prominent Jat face who won the seat as an independent MLA in 2014, finished third with 20,014 votes.

In two of these 11 seats, Rania and Uchana Kalan, even AAP candidates got more votes than the Congress’s margin of defeat, and in another two of these 11, the BSP got more votes than the Congress’s losing margin.

Apart from the two seats mentioned above, AAP also played spoiler for the Congress in the Dabwali and Assandh seats.

In other words, had the Congress fought in an alliance with the AAP, it could have increased its tally and got closer to the magic figure of 46. The Congress ended up with 37 seats, while the BJP won 48, registering its biggest victory in Haryana till date.

The INLD got two seats and Independents three.

Some spoilers

In three seats—Barwala, Narwana and Yamunanagar—INLD candidates polled more votes than the losing margins of the Congress candidates finishing as runners-up.

The BSP candidate in Assandh constituency received 27,396 votes, much higher than the Congress’ defeat margin of 2,306.

To be sure, there are six seats as well where the INLD candidates finished third, polling more votes than the BJP’s margin of loss, and in two seats each, the BJP’s loss margins were less than the votes that went to the BSP, AAP and independent candidates. But it is unlikely that the BJP would have been the second preference of those who backed the INLD, BSP and AAP in those seats. The Congress, on the other hand, would have gained in the absence of candidates from these parties.

Ahead of the polls, there were seat-sharing talks between the Congress and the AAP; however, they fell through eventually. The INLD, on the other hand, draws its support from the Jats, a community the Congress was heavily banking on to shore up its numbers.

In Assandh, apart from the BSP, Independents and AAP that possibly cut into the Congress’ votes, the Haryana president of the NCP (SP), Virender Verma, played a similar role, winning 4,218 votes in the seat, which was decided in the BJP’s favour by 2,306 votes.

Verma had unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha elections from the state, too, despite his party being part of the INDIA bloc. That time, he had obtained support from the INLD, too. The Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) played spoiler for the Congress in one seat (Dabwali) as well.

In terms of vote share, the Independents ended up with over 11 per cent of the votes, the INLD garnered 4.14 percent, the BSP got 1.82 per cent, while the AAP, as mentioned previously, got 1.79 per cent of the vote share.

(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)

Also Read: Joy to bitterness in 4 months. How Congress crashed in Haryana after cruising post LS poll results