Ellenabad bypoll: More votes for Abhay Singh Chautala, but victory margin falls by half

CHANDIGARH: While Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) leader Abhay Singh Chautala had claimed that the outcome of the Ellenabad bypoll would be a referendum to the farmers’ protest and contested the entire election on this issue, the final results on Tuesday hinted that he had failed to convert the issue into votes. Despite the fact that he had resigned as an MLA to extend solidarity with the farmers protesting on the Delhi borders against the Centre’s three farm laws, his margin of victory fell from around 12,000 votes in the October 2019 assembly elections to 6,375 votes now.
Even the appeal by senior Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) leader Rakesh Tikait, who had hinted that farmers should vote for Abhay in the bypoll, could not help him much. While INLD was looking for the revival of the party and expecting a landslide victory on the farmers' issue, the narrow margin of victory is not a very promising sign for the party. With Abhay’s victory, INLD has one MLA in the 90-member state assembly. Although the Ellenabad seat has a significant presence of rural voters who are largely into farming, the outcome of the byelection seems to indicate that there is no deep impact of the farmers’ agitation in the Bagri belt of Haryana. The urban-rural divide too has been highlighted as Abhay trailed in all booths in urban areas of assembly segment.
Talking to TOI, Abhay claimed that if BJP had not indulged in corrupt practices, his victory margin would have been more than 20,000 votes. He gave credit for his victory to the farmers’ agitation, claiming that because of his support to the farmers’ cause, he managed to get more votes than the previous election.
The INLD victory has also highlighted that party patriarch and former chief minister O P Chautala still has the charisma to influence people in his home turf and people of the constituency have accepted Abhay as his political heir. As far as the number of votes is concerned, Abhay polled 65,992 votes compared to 57,055 votes in the 2019 election.
The result also hints at the rejection of the JJP-BJP alliance by the people. The coalition has once again failed in the litmus test by losing the second bypoll. Earlier, the coalition partners had contested from the Baroda assembly seat together but lost. The entire state government, including ministers and MLAs of the ruling coalition, backed by the government machinery, could not secure a victory for the BJP nominee. The Ellenabad result would not have any impact on the numbers inside the state assembly, as the seat has been retained by INLD.
NO PRO-INCUMBENCY FACTOR:
Even Manohar Lal Khattar’s pro-incumbency factor did not work even as he had been seeking votes on the grounds of instant development for being in power. BJP had made several promises to change the constituency with the kind of development that the people of Ellenabad had never seen in the past three decades. Even JJP leader Ajay Singh Chautala and his son and deputy CM Dushyant Chautala, who had sought votes in the name of former deputy prime minister Devi Lal for the BJP nominee, failed to impress the voters.
BJP-JJP ALLIANCE GETS MORE VOTES TOO:
In the previous assembly polls in October 2019, when both BJP and JJP had contested separately, BJP had secured 45,133 votes and JJP candidate had secured 6,569 votes. If the previous votes by both of them are counted together, they had secured 51,702 votes. However, this time, joint candidate Govind Kanda got 59,253 votes, which is a better performance. Such performance, however, assumed more significance when the BJP and JJP leaders were seen struggling hard to visit people in the villages under the fear of backlash from farmers on issue of Centre’s three farm laws.
21,000 VOTES FOR CONG NOMINEE:
The result of the Congress candidate in the Ellenabad byelection has also made it clear that the party’s nominee, Pawan Beniwal, lost his deposit because of infighting. Leader of opposition and former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda did not spend much time campaigning for Beniwal, who was given the party ticket on the recommendation of state Congress president Kumari Selja. Hooda made a guest appearance in the assembly constituency and the entire poll campaign in Ellenabad was led by Selja. Apart from Hooda, several other firebrand Haryana Congress leaders were also missing in Ellenabad. Hooda’s favourite, Bharat Singh Beniwal, who had managed to score around 35,000 votes in the previous assembly poll, was denied ticket this time. Even Bharat Singh was not seen during the campaign because of ‘health reasons’. This time, the Congress nominee could get only 20,904 votes.