JJP’s Digvijay Chautala interacts with the media after election results, in Jind on Thursday. (Express photo)A debutant, Digvijay Chautala, who contested as an Independent candidate, forced the Congress heavy-weight Randeep Singh Surjewala to bite the dust in the bypoll to Jind assembly constituency. Although Digvijay lost to BJP’s Krishan Middha by a margin of 12,930 votes, but he managed to push Congress’ national spokesperson Surjewala to a distant third. While Digvijay got 37,648 votes, Surjewala could barely get 22,742 votes.
Middha broke all records of Jind assembly polls by getting 50,578 votes – the maximum a candidate ever been polled in the constituency’s history. Congress had last won Jind assembly polls in 2005 when Mange Ram Gupta defeated INLD’s Surinder Singh by a margin of over 17,000 votes. Congress’ decision to field a stalwart like Surjewala had raised many eyebrows.
Till date, Congress had won Jind assembly five times – in 1967, 1968, 1991, 2000 and 2005. INLD had won the assembly segment in 2009 and 2014, both times by Hari Chand Midsha whose son Krishan Middha won today.
In 2014 assembly polls, out of the total 121,276 votes polled in Jind, Hari Chand had secured 31,631 while BJP’s Surinder Singh Barwala got 29,374 votes.
While Congress infused its full strength in the bypoll, the poor performance of its star candidate is all set to dampen party’s high hopes. Shedding their infighting, all top leaders of Congress, including former chief minister Bhupinder Hooda, former CM Bhjan Lal’s son and MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi, HPCC president Ashok Tanwar and party’s Rajya Sabha MP Kumari Selja along with several sitting and former legislators campaigned for Surjewala.
The verdict is definitely going to force Congress to have a rethink on its poll-strategy and choice of candidates for the forthcoming Lok Sabha and assembly polls in Haryana. On the other hand, it is widely believed that almost entire vote bank of Indian National Lok Dal in the constituency had tilted in favour of Jannayak Janata Party-backed Digvijay. Jind is considered to be INLD’s stronghold.
Although with his nomination from Jind, Surjewala had succeeded in energizing Congress workers, but a few days ahead of the polling it had become apparent that he may not be a key contestant. Digvijay and his brother Dushyant Chautala, Member of Parliament from Hisar, backed by a large number of youth appeared stronger in their poll strategy and campaign across the constituency. Both Digvijay and Dushyant had been leading INLD’s youth wings before they parted ways after a bitter infighting within the Chautala clan.
Counting trends indicate that Digvijay managed to maintain a slight edge over Middha and Surjewala in rural areas, but the urban areas appeared to have eventually given a lead to the BJP candidate. Surjewala, however, failed in both urban as well as rural areas. During the campaign, both the BJP and Digvijay targeted Surjewala as an “outsider”. Surjewala is the sitting MLA from Kaithal. He had earlier defeated INLD chief Om Prakash Chautala in 1996 and 2005 from Narwana.
BJP, however, was consistently confident. Even after completion of first three rounds of counting in which Digvijay was leading by a margin of about 3,000 votes, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar appeared confident of his party’s victory. At that time, Khattar was inaugurating a PWD resthouse in Panchkula. Talking to the media persons at the venue, he said, “It’s a matter of satisfaction for me that he [Digvijay] was leading just by a margin of 3,000 votes after third round. We believed that even if he maintains a lead of 5,000 votes in rural areas, that lead will also reduce once the counting of urban areas begin. We shall surely secure a lead of 12,000-13,000 votes”.
Non-Jat leaders bagged nearly 50 per cent of the votes polled
Although it was not yet certain how far the caste politics played a role in Thursday’s verdict, but two parties – BJP and the Loktantra Suraksha Party (LSP) formed by BJP rebel Raj Kumar Saini – managed to sweep the polls. Of the total 130,589 votes polled, BJP and LSP together secured 64,160 votes. However, it appears that the Jat vote bank got divided among three leaders including Digvijay Chautala, Randeep Surjewala and Umed Redhu. All three Jat leaders together could get 63,844 votes. Of the total 1.71 lakh voters in Jind, considered as a Jat dominated Vidhan Sabha, there are about 45,000 Jat voters. However, because of the local caste equations, no member from the Jat community has ever won Jind assembly after 1972. It appears that the caste equations have again helped BJP candidate Krishan Middha, who comes from Punjabi community. It is also believed that LSP’s Vinod Ashari who comes from Brahmin community caused a dent in the non-Jat vote bank of BJP.
