Chandigarh: Polling for all the 90 Assembly seats in Haryana began on Saturday morning amid tight security arrangements, officials said.
The fate of Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, Congress leaders Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Vinesh Phogat, besides the JJP’s Dushyant Chautala and 1,027 other candidates, will be decided in the polls in which more than two crore people are eligible to vote.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is eyeing a hat-trick of Assembly election wins in the state, while the Congress is hoping to return to power after 10 years.
Key parties in the fray include the BJP, Congress, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), along with the pre-poll alliances of Indian National Lok Dal-Bahujan Samaj Party (INLD-BSP) and Jannayak Janta Party (JJP)-Azad Samaj Party (ASP). BJP is aiming for a third consecutive term in power, while the Congress is looking to make a comeback after a decade out of office. The results of the Haryana Assembly elections will be announced on October 8, alongside those of Jammu and Kashmir.
The decline in vote shares for smaller parties has been more pronounced in Lok Sabha elections, but the trend is also evident in state Assembly elections. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, smaller parties were virtually wiped out. The BJP and Congress, along with its ally Aam Aadmi Party, captured nearly 94 percent of the total votes.
Among the smaller parties, the Dushyant Chautala-led Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) managed just 0.87 percent of the vote share. The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) secured 1.74 percent and 1.28 percent, respectively.
Since 2014, the BJP in Haryana has focused on appealing to all communities except Jats, successfully winning the 2014 and 2019 assembly elections by creating a Jat vs non-Jat divide. The party built a strong non-Jat coalition, with substantial support from Dalits, as well as Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Punjabi Khatris, and upper castes. However, there is debate over whether Dalits vote as a unified bloc.
While some analysts believe the Dalit vote will favor the Congress, others argue that a significant portion of the community remains a core support base for the BJP. To better understand Dalit voting patterns in Haryana, one must consider the various sub-castes within the community.
