When INLD chief Om Prakash Chautala announced that if elected, his government would give job reservations in private sector, dole to unemployed youth and scooters to all girl students, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said, “Even if they promise aeroplanes, people aren’t going to vote for them.”

In a way, this reflects the immense confidence of the Congress, which advanced the state elections by seven months. The confidence stems from an impressive performance in the recent Lok Sabha Elections where the party won nine out of the 10 seats. Hooda’s buoyancy isn’t misplaced considering that the Opposition parties are marred by dissensions and departures. In the last two months, many prominent leaders of the INLD, BJP and BSP have joined the Congress. The partnership between the INLD and BJP came to an abrupt end, while Bhajan Lal’s Haryana Janhit Congress failed to forge an alliance with the BSP.

The fragmented Opposition also allowed the Hooda government a comfortable rule, despite certain contentious matters. The rampant involvement of the state police in crime, the open flouting of authority by the khap panchayats, acute power shortage and instances involving industrial violence were all major issues which find only muted references in Opposition parties’ campaigns which are largely centered around inflation.

Opposition parties apart, even the voter appears to be largely forgiving of the Congress government’s inadequacies. The Congress’s vote share in the 2009 General Elections in Haryana was 41 per cent, marginally less than the 42.46 per cent it scored in the 2005 Assembly elections. This also exposes the fallibility of the claim that the BSP could eat into the Congress vote share. The BSP improved its vote share from 3.44 per cent in the 2005 Assembly polls to 16 per cent in the recent LS elections, but its rise seems to have adversely affected the Chautalas. INLD has failed to win any seat in two consecutive LS elections, and has seen its vote share dipping from 23 per cent to 16 per cent. 

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