BJP’s vote share highest in Pataudi, city close second

Gurgaon: With 22 of the 24 candidates who contested for the Gurgaon Lok Sabha seat losing their security deposits, the fight this time was directly between BJP’s Rao Inderjit Singh and his former partymate Captain Ajay Yadav of Congress. In fact, their combined vote share was 95.18%, with Inderjit securing 60.94% and Captain Yadav 34.24%.
Of the nine assembly seats in the parliamentary constituency, BJP won convincingly in six — four in Gurgaon district (Gurgaon and Badshapur, the two most urban segments, Sohna and Pataudi) and two in Rewari district (Rewari and Bawal). Of these, the urban constituencies of Gurgaon and Badshapur, and the rural constituencies of Pataudi and Bawal voted overwhelmingly for Inderjit.
The highest vote share Inderjit got in this election was in Pataudi assembly seat (78.2%), followed by Gurgaon (76.9%), Bawal (76.8%), Badshapur (76.72 %) and home turf Rewari (73.9%).
On the other hand, Captain Yadav got barely 17% in Pataudi, 18.7% in Gurgaon, 17.4% in Bawal, 17.5% in Badshapur and 21.4% in Rewari, which is his home turf as well. For the Congress candidate, his highest score was 78.40% in Ferozepur Jhirka, followed by 76.5% in Punhana and 67.8% in Nuh. This means he did well in these three rural constituencies.
“In my assembly constituency, there was around 64% polling and of the total votes polled, Rao Inderjit got around 77%, which I think is a record of sorts. I did everything I could to ensure our party candidate won with a thumping majority,” said Badshapur MLA Rao Narbir Singh, Rao Inderjit’s bete noire.
While Captain Yadav did not contest the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Rao Inderjit got more votes this time in all assembly seats than in 2014. While he got 84,828 votes in Bawal in 2014, this time he got 1.51 lakh votes. Likewise in Rewari, it was 95,353 in 2014 and 1.19 lakh this time. In Pataudi, it was 92,020 last time and now 1.20 lakh. Similarly, in Badshapur, it was 1.3 lakh votes in 2014 and 1.85 this time. And in Gurgaon, it was 1.25 lakh and now 1.62 lakh.
Though Congress has been in a complete disarray in the district for the past five years or so, Captain Yadav managed to get close to five lakh votes in the constituency . This was despite the fact that on the day of polling, booth workers were missing in over 100 polling stations in Gurgaon and Badshapur assembly constituencies as prominent local functio-naries did not actively campaign for their own party candidate.
However, Yadav did hint of sabotage by his own partymen. “This wasn’t Rao Inderjit’s victory but that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s. Throughout the election campaign, Rao Inderjit kept asking the voters not to vote for him but instead vote for Modi’s sake. The Balakot air strikes were also majorly politicised by the BJP.”