Exit polls: Congress expected to return to power in Haryana; NC-Cong has edge in J&K

The Congress was expected to return to power in Haryana after 10 years while its alliance with the National Conference (NC) has an edge over the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), exit polls suggested. The first assembly elections in a decade in J&K concluded on Tuesday. The polling in Haryana was held on Saturday. The votes will be counted on October 8.

A party or an alliance needs 46 seats to form the government. Republic TV - P Marq said Congress was expected to get 55-62 seats, the BJP 18-24 and others 2-5 seats. Times Now gave the Congress 50-64 seats, the BJP 22-32, and others 2-8.

CVoter projected the BJP was expected to get 27-32 seats out of 43 in the Jammu region while NC-Congress 11-15, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) 0-2, others 0-1. In Kashmir, the NC-Congress was expected to get 29-33 seats out of 47, BJP 0-1, PDP 6-10, and others 6-10. The NC-Congress was overall projected to get 40-48 out of 90 seats, BJP 27-32, PDP 6-12, and others 6-11. A party or an alliance needs 46 seats to form the government.

Republic TV - P Marq projected NC-Congress was expected to form the government with 55-62 seats. The BJP was likely to get 18-24 and others 2-5 seats.

Former chief minister and NC leader Omar Abdullah downplayed the exit polls saying he was amazed that TV channels were bothering with them, especially after the fiasco of the recent general elections. “I’m ignoring all the noise on channels, social media, WhatsApp Etc because the only numbers that matter will be revealed on the 8th of Oct. The rest is just time pass.”

Exit polls this summer showed the BJP was set to match or better its 2019 Lok Sabha tally of 303 in 543-member Lok Sabha. But the Congress-led Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) posted strong results winning 233 seats. It restricted the BJP to 240, below the majority mark of 272.

The assembly polls in J&K were seen as a direct contest between the BJP and NC-Congress combine. A last-minute alliance between Engineer Rashid’s Awami Ittehad Party and Jamaat-e-Islami-backed independent candidates was expected to skew the electoral arithmetic.

Other local parties such as the PDP of former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, former minister Sajjad Gani Lone-led People’s Conference, the Apni Party, and the Democratic Progressive Azad Party were also in the fray.

The elections were held against the backdrop of a spike in terror attacks particularly in Jammu. They were also the first in the region since it was stripped of its semi-autonomous status with the nullification of the Constitution’s Article 370 and statehood in 2019. Article 370 and the restoration of statehood were key poll planks for the NC-Congress alliance.

J&K has been without an elected government since June 2018 when BJP withdrew support to the PDP-led coalition government. The region was under the governor’s rule before the Union government in August 2019 revoked Article 370. The region was also bifurcated into two UTs— J&K with an assembly and Ladakh without one.

In December last year, the Supreme Court upheld the revocation of Article 370 and directed the Election Commission of India to conduct polls for the 90-member legislative assembly by September 30, 2024. The court asked the Union government to restore statehood to the region “as soon as possible”.

In May 2022, a three-member delimitation commission redrew the electoral map of the region, earmarking 43 seats to the Hindu-majority Jammu region and 47 to Muslim-majority Kashmir. Out of the seven new seats, six were allotted to Jammu and one to Kashmir. The regional parties rejected the panel’s decision calling it an attempt to consolidate BJP’s vote bank.

In 2014, the PDP emerged as the single-largest party with 28 seats and formed an alliance of ideological extremes with the BJP, which had 25 seats.

In Haryana, the ruling BJP and the Congress won five seats each in the national polls. The grievances of the Agniveers and farmers were seen as the key factors behind Congress’s better performance. Farmer distress, the Agniveer military recruitment scheme, which sparked protests over reduced tenure and fewer post-service benefits, and the protests of wrestlers against BJP leader and ex-Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh over sexual harassment allegations were among the key assembly poll issues. Wrestler Vinesh Phogat, who became the face of the protests, contested as a Congress candidate.

The assembly elections were a direct contest between the BJP and the Congress even as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) were also in the fray.

The BJP hoped to overcome anti-incumbency and retain power for the third time. The Congress, which rules only neighbouring Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, and Telangana on its own, was expected to carry forward the momentum of the Lok Sabha polls and form a government in Haryana after 10 years.

The Congress won 31 seats of the 90 in Haryana in 2019. The BJP bagged 40, falling short of the majority mark of 46. It formed the government with the help of JJP, which won 10 seats. The alliance collapsed earlier this year when the BJP snapped its ties with the JJP and replaced Manohar Lal Khattar with Nayab Singh Saini as the chief minister.

The JJP contested the 2024 assembly elections in an alliance with Parliament member Chandrasekhar Azad-led Azad Samaj Party. The Congress and the AAP, which are part of the INDIA bloc, contested the elections separately after they could not agree on a seat-sharing arrangement. The INLD and BSP fought the elections together.