Social engineering: How Congress lost its traditional vote banks in Haryana

The once mighty Congress that won 67 of 90 seats in the Haryana assembly in 2005 and 40 in 2009 has now been reduced to a pathetic 15 seats, a poor third after the BJP and the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD). The BJP, which had never been in power on its own, winning just four seats in 2009 and six seats in 2005 assembly elections, has managed to form the government after winning 47 seats. How did this turnaround come about for the two parties? The answer lies in who managed social engineering better. The support of Dalits, including the Scheduled Caste and the Backward Classes, as well as that of the Jats and upper castes and Ahirs in the Ahirwal belt ensured victory for the Congress. The tried and tested formula held sway when the party led by the Jat leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda won two consecutive assembly elections in the state in 2005 and 2009. [caption id=“attachment_1774807” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. AFP[/caption] An analysis of the assembly elections 2014 reveals that the formula has lost its appeal and new dynamics have started dictating the electoral behaviour of the Haryanvis. Dalits, on whose votes the Congress had won previous elections, supported the BJP which promised them safety and security under its rule. Rising cases of atrocities on Dalits in Haryana and the failure of the party to ensure their safety cost the Congress dear. There are 17 reserved seats in Haryana for the Scheduled Castes which always gets divided among various parties, the Congress being the major beneficiary. This time in a turnaround, the BJP managed to win nine SC seats which proved how disenchanted the Dalits were with the Congress. Talking to Firstpost, Karamvir Boudha, president of Haryana Scheduled Caste/Backward Classes Organisation said, “For long the Dalits had been feeling suffocated under the Congress rule. It only cared for the Jats. A number of times the Dalits raised the issue of rising atrocities against their community, but no concrete measures were taken by the state government,” he said. “The government also failed to fill the job backlog of Dalits. It failed to implement the system of reservations in promotions for the Dalits despite the Supreme Court ruling in this regard. The government misused the Special Component Budget for the Scheduled Caste for some other department. The Dalits lost all hope and voted in large numbers for the BJP which they thought would work for their welfare,’’ said Karamvir Boudha. Atrocities against Dalits were on rise during in the last ten years. Incidents like Mirchpur village in Hisar in 2010, when two Dalits, including a physically challenged girl, had been burnt alive after several houses in the locality had been set on fire by the Jats was a blot on the Congress government. Cases of rapes and molestation of Dalit girls continued to increase and there were very few prosecutions against the culprits. In the last four years there was a big spurt in cases of atrocities against the Dalits. In the 238 such cases registered in 2010, 170 people were chargesheeted, however only 28 were punished. The incidents of atrocities against Dalits increased to 257 in the year 2013. Out of the 146 people chargesheeted, only 20 were punished by the law. The slow rate of prosecution and the minuscule number of people punished, besides the low rate of registration of FIRs against perpetrators of crime, led to anger in the community against the police and the administration under the Congress government. According to Ishwar Singh, a member of the Scheduled Caste Commission of India, the percentage of Dalits in Haryana is around 22 percent, but the largest number of atrocities are reported against this community. The police is always lax in registering such cases or investigating them, specially if it involves people from the Jat community, he said. If the loss of the Jat votes (majority community with 28 percent) cost the Congress dear in the assembly elections, the Jats too, with whom the Congress government tried to show solidarity, did not back the party much in the Jat belt, except in pockets. “Jats have traditionally been INLD supporters, but also voted for the Congress in the past, especially in the Rohtak, Jhajjar and Sonepat belt. The Congress lost some ground in all these areas to the BJP, without managing to win their support in any new areas. The BJP thus won six seats in the Jat belt of Haryana for the first time. On the other hand the INLD continued to hold sway over Jat voters in their strong areas of Sirsa, Bhiwani and Jind,” said Khushwant Singh, a Jat leader from Sonepat. In the Ahirwal belt of Mahendragarh, Rewari, parts of Gurgaon, the Ahirs deserted the Congress this time. Rebelling against the leadership of Jat leader Bhuipinder Singh Hooda, the most prominent Ahir leader from the region, Rao Inderjit Singh had already quit the Congress earlier for the BJP (He is now a Union Minister). Several other Ahir leaders too lost faith in the Congress. In the end this proved extremely cost for the ruling party, so much so that a person of the stature of former Haryana minister Capt Ajay Singh Yadav, who had won six assembly elections in a row, lost the vidhan sabha elections this time because of the anger against the Congress. In the end, the anti-incumbency factor led to the downfall of the ruling Congress. Hooda had been charged with regionalism and bias not just by opposition leaders, but by his own partymen, including Kumari Selja, Birender Singh, Capt Ajay Yadav, Rao Inderjit Singh, Venod Sharma and several others. Hooda tried to appease all communities and especially the employees with sops, but the rot had already set in, costing the Congress power, even as the BJP surged ahead. Anil Vij, the newly inducted minister in the Manohar Lal Khattar’s government of the BJP in Haryana, said “instead of working for the welfare of the people, the Congress indulged in land deals in a wrongful manner. Now all such suspected land deals will be under scrutiny and be probed,” he said. “The Jats have ruled the state for too long. It’s time members of other communities in Haryana were given a chance to govern. We welcome the appointment of Manohar Lal Khattar, a Punjabi as the new Chief Minister of the state. I am sure he will give a fair deal to every community and work for the progress and development of the entire state and not just f favourite pockets like that of the Congress,” said Neeraj Makkar, a professional from Chandigarh. The BJP was wise in keeping non-Jat voters in its fold. Besides it was competent in cultivating the anti-incumbency factor in its favour. It’s social engineering was spot on.