The Congress party’s showed its worse ever performance in the Haryana assembly polls due to its favoring Junta with overemphasis on the Jat caste and its former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda. He said this feeling made the BSP politically irrelevant as it failed to mobilise the Dalits and non-Jat voter base.
Hooda who was in charge of the campaign laid his eyes on the Jat vote by releasing 28 Jat candidates. But this strategy marginalized Dalit leader and Kumari Selja, and neglected other communities apart from the Jats. Thus, Congress once again alienated Dalits and non-Jats, voters who might have brought the Congress a victory.
Intrasectional conflict that characterized the party also served to demoralize it further. Hooda ended the process by sifting through the 70 candidates that he had endorsed;-of which Selja claimants were a paltry nine. They reduce the community’s size by this division as the BJP, under Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, demonstrates how the strategic coalition of non-Jat and Dalit votes will surrender vital areas like Ahirwal. Another factor that Congress missed was the 17 reserved seats from Scheduled Caste.
The BJP benefitted from Congress’s divided strategy it counter attacked with Dalit and non-Jat Voters while the AAP made fun of Congress internal conflict. The division between Hooda and Selja camps led to a confined, vigorous drive that had absolutely no bearing to the Jat community apart from the Jat votes.
While many people fault Hooda’s strategy, Congress’s impotence flows from him and the party high command’s inability to bring competing factions together. In other words, the Congress needs to attract the attention of a wider cross section of population and mediate internal conflicts which currently primarily include votes of Jat origin.
