 "LS polls: Congress gains five seats in Haryana, BJP down from 10 to 5 seats")
Congress made significant gains in Haryana winning three and heading towards victory in two more giving a setback to ruling BJP, whose tally was down from ten to five seats in the state, where Assembly polls are also due later in the year.
For the Congress, Kumari Selja (Sirsa) registered big win while Deepender Singh Hooda (Rohtak) was also headed to register an emphatic win, as per the latest data of results and trends of the Election Commission.
Among the BJP leaders, former Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar was also headed for a big win from Karnal.
The BJP and Congress were set to win five seats each. In 2019, the saffron party had won all the 10 LS seats in the state.
However, candidates of JJP, which contested all ten seats and INLD and BSP, which fought seven and nine seats, respectively, received a severe drubbing and their candidates were set to lose security deposits.
In the Karnal assembly constituency, where a bypoll was held, Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini was set to win with a big margin after a lead of 41,540 votes over Congress nominee Tarlochan Singh.
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Saini had replaced Khattar as chief minister as party effected a leadership change in March barely days before Lok Sabha polls were announced.
Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda claimed that the Congress' performance in the Lok Sabha polls in the state will have an impact on the Vidhan Sabha elections, which are due in October.
Hooda said that farmers' plight, Agnipath, unemployment, law and order, and inflation were key issues which the ruling BJP failed to address.
This time, the Congress had fielded candidates on nine seats while its INDIA bloc ally AAP is contesting the Kurukshetra seat.
Among the Lok Sabha seats, while Congress won Sirsa, Hisar and Sonipat seats, it was way ahead in Ambala and Rohtak.
BJP was set to score wins in Karnal, Bhiwani-Mahendragarh, Gurgaon, Kurukshetra and Faridabad.
However, BJP's vote share in LS polls in Haryana was down from over 58 per cent in 2019 general elections to over 46 per cent now.
Congress, on the other hand, gained in vote share which rose from 28.42 per cent in 2019 to 43.68 per cent, as per the available data of the results and trends for the seats.
BJP has sitting MPs in Bhiwani-Mahendragarh, Gurgaon and Faridabad.
After initial hiccups in early counting rounds over Congress rival Raj Babbar, Union Minister Rao Inderjit Singh managed to hold on to his Gurgaon seat, which he won fourth time in a row. Singh had also represented Mahendragarh twice, which later became Bhiwani-Mahendragarh constituency from 2009.
Rao Inderjit had a lead of over 73,000 votes.
Former Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar was set for a comfortable win from Karnal seat, with an unassailable lead of 2,25,754 votes over Congress rival Divyanshu Budhiraja.
Kumari Selja defeated her BJP rival Ashok Tanwar by a margin of 2,68,497 votes while from Hisar seat, former MP Jai Prakash of the Congress defeated BJP's Ranjit Chautala 63,381 votes.
In Rohtak, Deepender Singh Hooda was set to register a win with highest victory margin in the state having earned a lead of 3,42,834 votes over sitting BJP MP Arvind Sharma.
Reacting to his performance in Karnal assembly seat, Chief Minister Saini said, "this is victory of people of Haryana".
He also said he thanks people of Haryana the way they participated in this festival of democracy and strengthened democracy.
About NDA's performance, he said, people have put a stamp for third time on the policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government.
Under Modi's leadership, the way Haryana has undertaken progress earlier, the state will continue to do so in future, Saini said.
On Congress wresting five seats from BJP, Bhupinder Hooda said that he had been saying "there is a wave blowing in favour of the Congress".
Haryana is known for "jai jawan, jai kisan, jai pehalwan", Hooda said.
"But what did they (BJP) do. They brought Agniveer (Agnipath scheme), which faced opposition from the youth. They did not redress farmers' issues. And everyone knows the treatment that was meted to our wrestler daughters, who had to protest (at Delhi's Jantar Mantar)," he said.
Meanwhile, after initial see-saw in many rounds from the Sonipat LS seat, Congress' Satpal Brahmachari prevailed over BJP's sitting MLA Mohan Lal Badoli, with grand old party candidate winning by a margin of 21,816 votes.
In the Ambala constituency, Congress' Varun Chaudhary, a sitting MLA, was set to score a win over his BJP rival Banto Kataria with a lead of 47,060 votes.
Union minister Krishan Pal Gurjar, who is the sitting MP from Faridabad, was leading over Congress' Mahender Pratap Singh by 1,72,914 votes.
From Kurukshetra, BJP candidate Naveen Jindal, who had been trailing for quite some time earlier in the day, was set to score win over his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) rival Sushil Gupta with a lead of 29,021 votes.
Indian National Lok Dal leader Abhay Singh Chautala was also in the fray from Kurukshetra but was trailing. His party candidates in six other constituencies were also trailing.
Likewise, Jannayak Janta Party, whose alliance with BJP ended in March, and Bahujan Samaj Party candidates were also trailing.
The counting of votes began at 8 am amid tight security arrangements at 91 counting centres.