NEW DELHI, India—After securing unprecedented victory in the parliamentary polls five months back, saffron political outfit Bhartya Janta Party (BJP) has captured power in Haryana, and emerged as the largest party in Maharashtra. It is for the first time that BJP has got great success in Haryana. Indian media is giving credit to Narendra Modi for this success. In Maharashtra, BJP is likely to make government with the support of either Shiv Sena or Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
The BJP bagged 47 of a total of 90 seats in Haryana, and 122 in the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly. BJP has increased its seats to 47 in Haryana from a mere 4 in the outgoing assembly.
The BJP’s parliamentary board that met in the evening decided to send two observers each to Maharashtra and Haryana to decide its chief ministers.
Like Maharashtra, Haryana saw multi-cornered contests. Besides the BJP, Congress and INLD, fringe players such as
HJC, HJCP, HLP, BSP and Samast Bhartiya Party were in the fray. Barring two seats to the HJC and one each to BSP and SAD, none other got anything. The Congress secured only 15 seats and was placed in third position, behind Om Parkash Chautala-led Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) tally of 19. A similar situation had surfaced for the Congress in Maharashtra. The party’s tally of 40 was behind Shiv Sena’s 63.
The BJP in Maharashtra will have to ally with either the Shiv Sena or the NCP. The saffron party is more likely to restore its alliance with Shiv Sena as suggested by the statements of BJP leaders. “We have never said the Shiv Sena is our enemy. We couldn’t contest the elections as an alliance because of disagreements on seat-sharing,” said a senior BJP leader.
On the other hand, the Shiv Sena sounded tough with spokesman Sanjay Raut telling reporters that party chief Uddhav Thackeray should be made Chief Minister if an alliance is struck with the BJP. But the Shiv Sena was soon on the defensive after NCP leader Praful Patel suggested that his party could extend outside support to the BJP in order to provide a “stable government” in Maharashtra.
The top losers include Savitri Jindal (Congress), Venod Sharma (Haryana Jan Chetna Party), Gopal Kanda (Haryana Lokhit Party), Dushyant Chautala (INLD), Chander Mohan (HJC), Arvind Sharma (state BJP chief), Vandana Sharma (sister of Union Minister Sushma Sawraj).
While prominent among those who won included outgoing CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Ram Bilas Sharma (Haryana BJP chief), Capt Abhimanyu, Abhay Chautala, OP Dhankar, Kiran Chaudhry, Kuldeep Sharma, Manohar Lal Khattar, Kuldeep Bishnoi and Renuka Bishnoi.
The poll results have endangered the regional concerns and unique cultural identities of various ethnic groups and religious minorities of the Indian peninsula.
