Leader of Oppostion in Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with party leaders Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Kumari Selja during a public meeting for Haryana Assembly elections, at Assandh, in Karnal district, Haryana.
Credit: PTI Photo
In Haryana, having pegged its expectations on opinion polls, the Congress was expecting nothing short of victory and kept formation of government talks alive. But things went awry and the grand old party is headed for a defeat with the BJP crossing the half way mark of 46 in the 90 Assembly constituencies in the State.
While the several exit polls had predicted a comfortable majority for the Congress and the early trends on Tuesday showed it contestants taking leads in many seats, the Congress had all the reasons to smile. But that lasted only for a few hours until the BJP, fighting ant-incumbency in the state after being in the reign for two consecutive terms, slowly and steadily took the reigns in the majority of the seats, thwarting all the pollsters' results, which predicted good tidings for the Congress.
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In Haryana, even though Congress had many factors favouring it right from the beginning of its campaign, with the party basking in the good returns of the Lok Sabha elections results — it won five of the 10 Lok Sabha seats in 2024 — the infighting and the fragmented approach of the I.N.D.I.A. bloc as a whole, with each of the parties like AAP trying to prove its worth, having gone it alone, is believed to have played spoilsport for the Congress.
The Congress fielded contestants in 89 seats out of a total 90 assembly segments and left the Bhiwani seat for the I.N.DI.A. bloc ally, the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
Credit: EC website
At the time of filing this copy, the Congress was leading in 34 seats with its ally, the CPI(M) losing the only seat it had vested its hopes on.
In the 2019 election, the Congress' vote share in the state was 28.08 per cent and if the current trends are to be believed, the grand old party, even though it is trailing behind BJP, will see its vote share go up to 39.05 per cent from what it was in the last Assembly elections in the state.
Haryana Assembly poll 2024 results| Check constituency results here
J&K Assembly poll 2024 results| Check constituency results here
Assembly Elections 2024 | In the first assembly polls since the Lok Sabha elections, Narendra Modi and the BJP face a rejuvenated and vindicated Opposition in the Haryana assembly polls. Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir is voting after almost a decade and it remains to be seen how the abrogation of Article 370 has impacted the political landscape of the Valley. Check live updates and track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analyses only on Deccan Herald.
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