Assembly elections in Haryana: Hurricane or gentle breeze blowing?

There is a video going viral in Haryana, shot by The Squirrels' Team Election. It shows Rahul Gandhi taking a gingerly bite of a pakora at a rally in Bahadurgarh, very close to Delhi, on the campaign trail. Bahadurgarh is a typical bustling north Indian town with three distinguishing features: its pakoras, its footwear park, which the locals say is the largest in Asia and the Delhi Metro that runs across the border. 

The joke that followed the video was whether the pakora would turn into a laddu on October 8, the day of the poll results. The Congress is expected to do well in the Haryana polls. That expectation is nowhere higher than within the party itself, with numbers up to 70 out of 90 being tossed around. 

Reasons for Congress' zeal

There are solid grounds for those expectations. The BJP-led government that returned to power for a second term was an alliance with Dushyant Chautala's JJP. Chautala, in the previous election campaign, had throughout attacked and challenged the BJP but ended up flipping and joining the government when the BJP's numbers fell short. After that, it was pretty much downhill for the alliance, especially after the farmers' protest over the Centre's proposed (and withdrawn) agriculture reform laws. Things were so bad that sitting MLAs were refusing to leave their homes for fear of safety, and those who did were verbally and even physically attacked. Eventually, the JJP broke off the alliance and the chief minister had to be changed. The state also saw communal violence and attacks on the minorities.

The Congress, which had been wiped out for 10 years, sees an opportunity. The Lok Sabha elections overall boosted its hopes and in Haryana specifically, it reduced the BJP's number to half, splitting the parliamentary seats into half, with five each for the two parties.

The vote share and pattern were significant for the Congress. The vote share difference between the BJP and Congress was only 2.5% — 46.3% for the BJP and 43.8% for the Congress. Within these numbers lay a lot of details. The Jat vote, which had pretty much abandoned the Congress, was back with it. 

More significantly, the Dalit vote was beginning to gravitate away from the BJP and to the Congress too. A CSDS-Lok Niti post-2024 poll survey shows the increase of the Congress-INDIA bloc vote share among Dalits from 20% in 2014 to 32% in 2024. The increase came at the expense of the BSP, which fell from 14% to 8% in the same period and the NDA, which peaked at 41% in 2019 but dropped to 36% in 2024. 

The story is even starker for the Jat vote. In both the 2014 and 2019 parliament and assembly elections, the BJP had made huge gains. Its vote shares in 2014 LS and VS were 19% and 17%, below the Congress. In 2019, these numbers surged — 52% and 37% respectively. But in 2024, the tide went low. The Congress-led alliance jumped to 64% while the BJP stumbled to 27%, half of the 2019 number. 

Why voters of Haryana are upset with the incumbent

This change is attributed to the anger over farm laws, the Agniveer scheme, unemployment, rising prices and general anti-incumbency. 

Jats make up 27% and Dalits around 20% of the voters in Haryana. If the voting pattern from the Lok Sabha elections holds, then the hope in the Congress camp will turn into conviction and, indeed, a sweep. 

But what does the voter actually think? Team Election of The Squirrels spent time travelling through Haryana to crack that toughest nut: the mind of the voter. 

The clearest signal comes from the Jat voter. Their mind is made: it is time for the BJP to pack up and go. The Congress' Hoodas are the most favoured candidate, though there is some slippage between whether it should be the father or the son who takes the CM's seat. Village after village in Jat-dominated areas was very clear about this. It is not merely the size of the Jat vote bloc but also its influence on other smaller communities which can swing (and has swung) elections.

The Dalit Vote

Then there are the Dalits and the lower castes. There is always a counterbalance among castes and communities; when one is more dominant; the others look for 'protection' from elsewhere. In this section, The Squirrels team found some uncertainty. Despite the Lok Sabha numbers, on the ground, the smaller castes were unsure. The BJP, remember, has done a lot of work in the last decade to pull the OBCs and smaller castes towards itself.

Modi himself remains popular, head and shoulders above all. The benefits that the Modi government has given over the last 10 years still resound, despite all complaints about lack of jobs, power cuts and dry taps. Even women in this section, normally reluctant to speak in Haryana, were quite vocal about their support for the BJP and the benefits they have got, particularly direct benefit transfers as well as jobs. In the Congress regime, many said, it was bribes-for-jobs, but during BJP's rule, it has been transparent and fair.

The BJP also senses that a dithering Dalit vote is a possible counter to Jat consolidation. The PM and others in their rally speeches have consistently attacked the Congress for being "anti-Dalit". The 2010 Mirchpur massacre in Hisar district, which has a large number of Dalits, is being weaponised by the BJP's campaign, since the violence was aimed at that community. In any case, like in almost all villages in India, in Haryana too, the lower and upper castes live within their own areas, indicative of the split. 

'Gathbandhan ki Sarkar'

There was one thing that The Squirrels found in common across several places and age groups: 'gathbandhan ki sarkar' or coalition government. The logic from them was very simple — that a coalition keeps control over all partners, rather than a full majority one where a single party has all the power. 

This can be seen as a lack of single-mindedness in the lower caste voting preference, unlike in the Jats. This uncertainty could well be the difference between a sweep and a thin majority for the Congress. 

The Haryana laddu will almost certainly go to Rahul Gandhi, but whether it will be sugar-coated or sugar-free is the key outcome that will be determined on October 8.