Could an AAP-Congress Alliance Have Avoided Haryana Poll Debacle? Numbers Suggest Otherwise

Could an AAP-Congress Alliance Have Avoided Haryana Poll Debacle? Numbers Suggest Otherwise

If we believe that all the votes that went to Arvind Kejriwal’s party would have been given to the Congress, the fate of the Grand Old Party on only four seats would have been different, analysis done by News18 shows. (PTI)

A supposed alliance between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Congress could not have saved the debacle of the two parties in the recently concluded Haryana elections, analysis of official data shows. While it may seem that AAP impacted the fate of the Grand Old Party in the battle against the BJP, a deeper look tells a different story.

The Congress won 37 seats in Haryana, nine short of the majority mark. If we believe that all the votes that went to Arvind Kejriwal’s party would have been given to the Congress, the fate of the Grand Old Party on only four seats would have been different, analysis done by News18 shows.

BJP touched the clear majority comfortably and could form the government on its own for the third time in the state with 48 seats in hand. It got 55.48 lakh votes and 39.94 per cent vote share. Congress was a little behind with 54.30 lakh votes and 39.09 per cent vote share. AAP could not win any seat in the state but 2.48 lakh votes and 1.79 per cent of the total votes.

The collective votes of the Congress and AAP are 56.78 lakh and, for the sake of argument, it could be said that the two parties would have trumped BJP had they joined hands. But, on ground, the votes are divided across 90 seats and do not make any impact on the results, except on four seats.

If all the votes that went to AAP had gone to Congress instead, the latter could have won Assandh, Uchana Kalan, Rania and Dabwali as the votes bagged by AAP were more than the loss margin for the Congress. Two of these seats were bagged by Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and two by BJP.

In Assandh, AAP bagged 4,290 votes while the victory margin for BJP was just 2,306 votes. Interestingly, even if the votes that went to Congress ally in Lok Sabha — Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar — had been given to the Congress, the party would have won the seat. The Maharashtra-based party got 4,218 votes in Assandh. The Congress bagged 52,455 votes against BJP’s 54,761.

In Uchana Kalan, BJP won by just 32 votes. Against the party’s 48,968 votes, Congress got 48,936 votes, while AAP bagged 2,495 votes in the constituency.

In Raina, INLD’s victory margin was 4,191 votes while AAP got 4,697 votes. Against INLD’s 43,914 votes, Congress got 39,723 votes. Another seat where the INLD won was Dabwali. The victory margin was 610 votes while AAP scored 6,606 votes. Congress won 55,464 votes and came second while INLD walked away with the seat with 56,074 votes in hand.

Apart from these four seats, the alliance could not have a major impact on the results. There were a few seats where AAP bagged a good share of votes but not enough to impact the results. Like in Dadri, BJP won with a margin of 1,957 votes with Congress finishing second. The AAP here bagged 1,339 votes.

AAP scored 43,813 votes in Jagadhri seat — highest among its candidates in the state — but the Congress emerged winner with BJP losing the seat. In none of the 90 seats, AAP came second. The Congress finished second in 45 seats across the state.

In 2019, the AAP contested on 46 seats and received 59,839 votes in total. All its candidates lost their deposit. This time, the party contested on 88 seats out of 90 and except in Jagadhri, all 87 candidates have lost deposit. It secured 2.48 lakh votes and 1.79 per cent of the total votes.

Further, for BJP, which first came to power in 2014 in Haryana, 2024 results were its best-ever performance with the highest number of seats and highest-ever vote share in the state. It got six seats in 2000, two in 2005, four in 2009, 47 in 2014 and 40 in 2019.

Interestingly, for Congress also it was its best performance in the last three polls.

The Congress, which needed nine more seats in the state to touch the majority mark, lost 10 seats with less than 5,000 vote margin. Two of these were bagged by INLD and eight by BJP. Of these 10 seats, in six, the margin was less than 3,000 votes.

Some of the lowest loss margin seats were Uchana Kalan (32 votes), Dabwali (610 votes), Dadri (1,957 votes), Assandh (2,306), Hodal (2,595), and Mahendragarh (2,648).

Further, for BJP, on at least four seats the loss margin was less than 2,000 votes and all these constituencies were bagged by the Congress. BJP lost Loharu (792 votes), Adampur (1,268), Rohtak (1,341) and Sadhaura (1,699) with the lowest margin.

In total, there were 19 seats where the victory margin was less than 5,000 votes with BJP finishing second on seven of these. In 31 seats, the victory margin was less than 10,000 votes.

Further, in at least five seats, the victory margin was more than 50,000 votes. Ferozepur Jhirka (98,441 votes), Garhi Sampla-Kiloi (71,465), Gurgaon (68,045), Badshahpur (60,705) and Panipat Rural (50,212) were the seats with highest victory margin.

The first two seats were bagged by the Congress, with BJP at second. The other three were by the BJP with Congress at second in Badshahpur and Panipat Rural.

Across 19 assemblies, the victory margin was more than 30,000 votes and, in nine of these, it was more than 40,000 votes, the data shows.