Haryana election result: It's official, glitzy Gurgaon is now the new saffron heartland

Forget Uttar Pradesh. The real saffron stronghold is now right on the outskirts of Delhi.

The Haryana assembly elections have confirmed what the Lok Sabha elections hinted at: Gurgaon is now BJP central.

On Sunday, BJP’s Umesh Aggarwal won by nearly 106106, with a margin of over 80,000 votes when compared to INLD’s Gopi Chand Gahlot who got a mere 22011 votes. The Congress’ candidate Dharambir Gaba was at a dismal third place.

The story  is distinctly similar to what happened in 2014 Lok Sabha polls. BJP’s Rao Inderjit Singh won 644780 votes which were 49 percent of the votes, while INLD’s Zakir Hussain got nearly half of Singh’s vote share with 370058 votes, a mere 29 percent of the votes polled. INC’s Dharam Pal got 11 percent with 133713 votes in his favour, while debutant AAP’s leader Yogendra Yadav – the star candidate who garnered huge media attention – got only 79452 votes which was a meagre 7 percent.

Rao Inderjit Singh was a former Congress member and minister in the UPA-1, who switched to the BJP ahead of the polls. There may have been doubts as to whether it was a vote for him or for the party. But the Assembly outcome now confirms that Gurgaon is indeed fully behind the BJP.

In both elections, it is evident that the city voted overwhelmingly for the BJP – or rather, to be accurate, Narendra Modi

According to this report in the Times of India, even hardcore “BJP voters in the DLF area were not even sure about the names of their local candidate”, a fact that didn’t make any difference to the final outcome. The victor Umesh Aggarwal gave due to credit to the Modi wave for his win, saying “It had to happen. Gurgaon had just one name in mind — Modi.”

And it wasn’t just the main Gurgaon city constituency that voted for the BJP, but also the other three other constituencies that come under the Gurgaon district: Badshahpur, Sohna and Pataudi.

In Badshahpur, BJP’s Narbir Singh won by a comfortable margin of 20,000 votes against his rival Rakesh Daultabad from INLD. In Pataudi, voters chose BJP’s Bimal Chaudhary who got close to 75,000 votes, well ahead of INLD rival Ganga Ram who managed to get only 36,000 votes. In Sohna, BJP’s Tejpal Tawar defeated INLD’s Kishore Yadav. While Yadav got 29250 votes, Tawar got 53,797 votes.

Nearly all the victory margins were huge, and over again the winners acknowledged the Modi factor. Pataudi’s winner Chaudhary told TOI, “I thank Modiji and Rao Inderjit Singh for trusting me. I promise to work for the neglected Pataudi.” Interestingly he too had quit the Congress along with Singh to join the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha. And now with the Pataudi ticket and subsequent victory, clearly Chaudhary made the right choice.

The 4-0 sweep by the BJP is significant given that this election saw Gurgaon’s elite gated community come out and vote in big numbers; the voting percentage in the city stood at 66.1 percent this year, which is impressive given its SEC profile (though it was significantly lower than the 76 percent voting seen in Sohna).

As Firstpost’s Debobrat Ghose pointed out in this earlier article,   the problem with Gurgaon is that “the residents of its skyscrapers, lead a cocooned existence within their gated communities supplied with own water and electricity, are oblivious to the lack of these basic amenities elsewhere. Thus they are notorious for not exercising their franchise.”

But the new “aspirational class,” wanted a change this year and with PM Modi leading the rallies in the city, many came out to vote. Some of the residents of Gurgaon that Ghose spoke to made it clear that this year they were sticking to the BJP.

Shahana Rajesh, who works with an international school in Gurgaon, told Firstpost, “The urban voters of Gurgaon want change. With Modi as PM at the Centre, Haryana also deserves a break, which will benefit Gurgaon." Her husband V Rajesh too backed her up saying, “It may look grand from outside or in business centres, but residential areas lack basic amenities like roads. One has to manage independent water and power supply. Residents end up paying heavily for power backups. It’s time to shake things up.”

“Modi’s rally will positively impact urban voters, who are looking for a change. A positive change is the need of the hour. Gurgaon needs to have proper law and order, traffic system and civic discipline, which are missing from this hi-tech city,” said retired Maj Gen Dhruv Katoch.

In the early 2000s, Gurgaon was touted as India Rising’s poster city, a promise that remained unfulfilled. Despite fancy malls and sky-scrapers, basic amenities are still scarce, including water, electricity, roads. Beyond the glitz, Gurgaon is sort of like a urban/rural jungle with countless problems. Hence, the overwhelming support for the BJP is hardly surprising. PM Modi has made ‘development’ his signature word, and of the kind that will undoubtedly benefit those living in the gated-communities the most.

And as long there is hope that Modi will deliver on that achhe din dream, Gurgaon will remain fully dyed in saffron.