Results come as a shock for BJP-led coalitions.
Continuing its success in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress coasted to power in Maharashtra for a third term in a row and secured a landslide win in Arunachal Pradesh, but failed to get an absolute majority in Haryana, following Assembly elections in the three states.
In Maharashtra, the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) alliance is set to form the next government quite easily as it got 144 seats out of the total 288 seats, needing one more for a simple majority, while in Arunachal Pradesh, the ruling Congress today stormed back to power with a two-thirds majority, winning 42 seats in the 60-member Assembly.
But the jolt came from Haryana, where the Congress fell six short of the magic figure of 46; independents, who could play a crucial role in government formation, won seven seats. With all the results declared, the Congress finished with a tally of 40 in the 90-member House, followed by the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), which won 31 seats.
The Congress had won nine out of 10 seats in the Lok Sabha elections held in April-May. Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had, in fact, forced an advance poll, hoping to repeat the party’s success in the Lok Sabha elections. A shocked Congress leadership said it would analyse the reasons for the party’s not-so-satisfactory performance in Haryana.
The Congress will start negotiations with Bhajan Lal’s Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC). Bhajan Lal had floated HJC after he was denied chief ministership in 2004. Bhajan Lal has already indicated that his party may support the Congress if his party is given the deputy CM’s post.
For the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the results also came as a shock, since its coalition in Haryana and Maharashtra didn’t work. In Haryana, it failed to go on in an earlier electoral arrangement with Om Prakash Chautala’s INLD, while in Maharashtra, fissures with its long-time partner, the Shiv Sena, damaged the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in many areas.
According to Congress and NCP sources, the farm loan waiver in rural Maharashtra and damage done by the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) on the Shiv Sena’s prospects in urban areas helped the ruling alliance register its third victory in the state.
BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad admitted the MNS — contesting its first Assembly election — had dented the NDA votebank in over 40 seats. “This had made the difference between victory and defeat,” he said.
The MNS contested 125 of the 288 Assembly seats and in areas like Mumbai, Thane and Nashik, it registered its presence and also cut the Sena’s votes. Senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde also said: “We lost in Mumbai because of the MNS.” Mumbai has 36 Assembly seats.
NCP partiarch and Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar also admitted that the ruling coalition got more seats in rural Maharashtra than it expected. “The central government’s policies have helped our alliance in Maharashtra. The Congress and NCP are doing very well and the response in rural Maharastra has been extremely good,” Pawar told reporters in Delhi.
In the NCP bastion of western Maharashtra, the government’s loan waiver scheme helped almost all farmers to wipe off big debts. In the Vidarbha region, the waiver partially benefitted all farmers. In these two areas, the Congress-NCP coalition bagged most of its seats.
In geo-politically sensitive Arunachal Pradesh, there is no guarantee how long the newly elected government will last, as the state’s legislators have a record of switching loyalties. Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, contesting in the border state for the first time, has bagged two seats and the Congress managers are confident the Trinamool MLAs will help the Congress government in the state, even as the Congress has no plan to form an alliance government there.
