The Haryana Assembly polls are three months away. The Congress is going into this election riding high on the Lok Sabha poll results, where, after a gap of 10 years, the party won five out of the 10 seats. Lok Sabha member and senior party leader in Haryana Deepender Hooda speaks to The Hindu on lessons from the Lok Sabha polls and the expectations ahead of the Assembly elections. Excerpts:
The Congress won five out of the 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana. Will this trend hold till the Assembly elections, a few months from now?
People of Haryana have spoken loudly and unequivocally that change is coming. There are few important takeaways from the Lok Sabha polls. We got 47.6% vote share, which is the highest that the Congress got since 1984 in the State. If we were to project the Lok Sabha results onto the Assembly seats, we led in 46 Assembly segments. This is a huge leap from the 2019 results when a similar extrapolation showed the Congress leading merely in 10 Assembly seats. Another significant trend is that we led in all 10 Lok Sabha seats. Even in the seats we lost, our vote share has gone up and the BJP’s vote share has dipped across the State irrespective of the caste or class profile of the seat. This clearly illustrates that there is a high level of anti-incumbency against the BJP-led State government. This will manifest itself in three months down the line and the Congress will form the government with a thumping majority.
You fought the Lok Sabha polls in alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party, but there are indications now that you will be going solo in the Assembly elections. Why?
The AAP does not have any ground presence in Haryana. Our alliance for the Lok Sabha seat was part of our national understanding. The Kurukshetra seat was given to them as part of the bargain where the AAP conceded three seats in Delhi and the Chandigarh Lok Sabha constituency. In retrospect, there is a growing sentiment in the party that had the Congress retained the Kurukshetra seat, we could have won it. The BJP’s victory margin is narrow and can be attributed to the fact that people may not have known the AAP symbol. For Assembly elections, we have never had an alliance with the AAP. The Congress is strong enough in all 90 Assembly segments and we are capable of forming a government with a decisive majority of our own.
What will be the key focus of the Congress campaign?
The double engine government has failed the people of Haryana. In the past we have recorded the highest growth rate. We were number one in per capita income. In many other developmental indices too, we were far ahead of the others. In contrast, today, we top the charts in terms of unemployment, inflation and crime. Haryana has in fact overtaken Punjab in “deaths due to drug overdose”. The Haryana government started a scheme called Kaushal Nigam — a purported employment scheme. On one hand, there are two lakh government jobs lying vacant, but instead of filling those, the government under the Kaushal Nigam Scheme, started hiring people on contractual basis on meagre salaries. The idea was to give jobs without pension or even extending reservation. Every section of society has come out to protest against this State government, from school students, farmers, government servants and even Olympic medal winning athletes. They have failed to fulfil the aspirations of our people and derailed the Haryana story. There is also nostalgia for Bhupinder Hooda-led Congress government.
The Congress’s Haryana unit is riven with factionalism. In a recent meeting at party headquarters, these differences came to the fore. How do you react to the allegations that between you and your father, former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, alienated several senior leaders in the party?
I don’t think there was any conversation on this during the meeting. There is only one faction that is Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge’s factions. We wouldn’t have delivered the results we have in the Lok Sabha if we were not united.
During the Lok Sabha campaign, there was a narrative on north-south divide, with many claiming that the Congress is strong only in south India. How do you react?
I think the people of Haryana have delivered a strong counter to this narrative. The highest vote share for the INDIA bloc does not come in Tamil Nadu or Kerala or Telangana or Karnataka. In none of these States there is a BJP government. The highest vote share comes from a State in the heart of north India — Haryana, where the Congress had a direct face-off with the BJP. Divisive politics such as this, to divide the country on geographical lines and parochial identities has been thoroughly rejected by voters.
