View: Haryana, J&K election results mark return of PM Modi’s mojo

Haryana is one of the most developed and industrialised states of India but the state also has a historical context given its proximity to Delhi. While the battle of Mahabharat was fought in Kurukshetra, it is also the land where the three battles of Panipat took place and ended up changing the political landscape of Bharat.

While the battles of Panipat defined who ruled Delhi or at least north India, it goes to the credit and bravery of Haryanvis who took their last stand against the Islamic invaders be it Babur, Akbar or Ahmed Shah Abdali.

The small state has huge sense of Bharatiya identity and will stand up against anti-India forces whatever may be the odds. This resilience of Haryanvis in many ways defines India : against all odds. And this is why electoral results in Haryana and the UT of Jammu and Kashmir are watershed events with long-term political implications.

The BJP swept to power for an unprecedented third time in Haryana, while bagging 29 out of 31 Hindu-dominated constituencies in Jammu but scored nil in Muslim-dominated Kashmir valley.

Many experts have analysed the Assembly election results including the exit pollsters who have now been reduced to a farcical show on TV news channels, but the big picture has larger ramifications on national polity.

The most important development is the return of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mojo with Congress’ resurgence narrative under Rahul Gandhi taking a huge hit. The electoral results in both Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir showed that PM Modi retains his charisma with the electorate, especially women, and has the capacity to swing votes in favour of the BJP on his own.

Even though the 2024 Lok Sabha election results took some sheen off the Brand Modi, the Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir election results have shown that PM is the tallest political leader in India with mass appeal across religion, caste and region. The flipside of the results was that the narrative built by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi that BJP was on an electoral decline and its leader Narendra Modi was tired was buried by Haryana electorate.

Opposition fight has suddenly got tough

The revitalisation of the BJP and its top leadership means that Opposition fight in forthcoming Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Delhi elections has suddenly got tough with INDI alliance partners of Congress accusing the grand old party of being arrogant and complacent in Haryana and even Jammu and Kashmir elections . PM Modi took this narrative a step further when he accused Congress of being a parasite which feeds on its allies and a harbinger of anti-India forces.

The Assembly elections results also shows that both the BJP and its ideological parent, the RSS, have been able to get their chemistry back after the temporary estrangement of 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The RSS led by Pavan Jindal held no less than 7,000 ‘nukkad’ meetings to get the public to vote for the BJP while using the whisper campaign against Jats to good effect.

The RSS synergy with the BJP worked as its disciplined cadre brought the voter to booth on the election day while Congress leadership was smug and complacent even before the first vote was cast. While the BJP and Congress divided the Jat-dominated and the Dalit constituencies virtually equally among themselves, it is the OBC constituencies in which the BJP scored.

The BJP won 20 out of 25 OBC-dominated seats with significant non-Jat populations. While the top BJP and RSS leaders are now on the same page, the RSS worker tends to flip to the other side if his recommendation for a party ticket is ignored. This was seen in Jammu as well as in Haryana.

The Assembly election result is also a wake-up call for the self-serving bureaucracy of India as the Babus started believing that PM was on the decline in Modi 3.0 as neither the party nor the strong leadership can be nimble enough for coalition politics.

PM Modi is still the political force to reckon with

By scoring a hat-trick in Haryana and BJP winning the maximum number of voters in Jammu and Kashmir, PM Modi has signaled that he is still the political force to reckon with.

The Haryana election results also dealt a blow to the continued agitation by so-called farmers turned political activists over the now repealed three farm laws. With the so-called farmers making life and business inconvenient by permanently blocking key roads and highways, the largely agrarian state of Haryana gave a thumbs down to these agitators, who were at times proxies of Opposition parties with funding from Punjab and abroad.

Fact is that the majority of cities on the GT Karnal road from Ambala to Sonipat voted for the BJP candidates as Congress chief ministerial candidate B S Hooda had offered to open the now-closed Shambu and Jind borders for agitators to camp on the borders of Delhi. With business establishments on G T Road taking a huge hit during the 2020-2021 farmers agitation, the voters ensured that Bhartiya Kisan Union leader lost his deposit and ensured that BJP government was repeated again.

Another reason was that non-Jat voter did not want the Jats to flex muscles and dominate politics as has happened before the BJP came to power in 2014. Simply put, business out-voted muscle power and politics.

The Haryana and the Jammu and Kashmir election also showed consolidation of the Hindu vote as it came at a time when the Hindu minorities were being targeted by Islamists in Bangladesh. To make matters worse, the Haryana electorate saw through Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s strategy of consolidating the Muslim vote while trying to divide the Hindu vote on caste basis.

The religious polarization in Haryana post riots in Muslim-dominated Nuh further strengthened the Hindu vote in favour of the BJP as well as the illegal infiltration of Rohingyas from Bangladesh.

Despite the public resentment of urban electorate against the BJP government for poor municipal governance and low level official corruption, Gurugram, Sohna, Faridabad and Badshahpur sweep by the right wing party shows loyalty of the urban voters to PM Narendra Modi.

While the Haryana results have brought back Congress from 99 to a zero in snakes and ladder game, the BJP on its part has got a huge boost with a larger mandate defying 10 years of incumbency. The BJP and the RSS workers, who had virtually given up on Maharashtra after the 2024 results, are now energized and pushing themselves to reclaim the financial capital of India.

The Congress and its INDI allies will have to put their head down and work in Maharashtra as BJP has smelt blood after Haryana results. While the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance will not announce any chief ministerial candidate, the fight is on within INDI alliance as to who will be the Mukhya Mantri. The Congress will have to devise a new strategy as fringe narratives will not work as BJP’s principal electoral weapon, Narendra Modi, along with chief strategist Amit Shah are firing on all cylinders.