After Lok Sabha boost, Cong eyes power in Haryana

Haryana will be a keenly watched battle where a resurgent Congress will seek to oust the BJP after a decade out of power in what was its bastion till the advent of Narendra Modi on the national scene.
BJP spotted signs of strong anti-incumbency, built around jobs, prices and law and order, ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, and effected correctives by replacing chief minister M L Khattar with Nayab Singh Saini. But the party could not stave off the Congress which won five of the ten seats, a major shift after having been reduced to zero in 2019 and just one in 2014.
The immediate backdrop of the battle is the reason why Congress is gung ho about its prospects, with party leaders even predicting a landslide.
After Congress lost the assembly owing to decade-long anti-incumbency barely months after Modi wave installed the BJP govt at the Centre, the state has been decoupled from the central scene. Barely had the state voted overwhelmingly for BJP in the post-Pulwama 2019 LS elections that it nearly shocked the party in vidhan sabha. The BJP was stopped at 40 seats and had to tie up with JJP to form the govt. This time, Congress goes into the polls having won half of the Lok Sabha seats, and that too in an election where polarising factors like Ayodhya were in full play.
Post-2024, the main rivals have been trying to adjust the factors to their advantage. Congress led by Bhupinder Hooda has been on a non-stop campaign across the state, beefed up by statewide yatra by Deepender Hooda and a separate one focussed on urban seats by senior MP and Dalit face Kumari Selja. Congress is a divided house in the state, but insiders exude confidence that it would not come in the way of aggregating the voters for the party.
BJP, on the other hand, is banking on the new variable that it inserted in the Haryana politics in 2014 with the formulation “35 qaum ka chunav” – an allusion to the strategy of polarisation against the dominant Jat community. It served it well in 2014 assembly polls and then 2019, and its traces can be found in its continuing influence over Yadav and Punjabi community and strength in the urban centres. The idea behind replacing Khattar with OBC Nayab Saini is also designed as part of the same plan.