For political parties and candidates in Haryana, this is a testing time not just for the ensuing Lok Sabha elections but also for the state assembly elections only a few months away.
Chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has a reputation to defend. His party grabbed nine of the 10 seats from the state in the 2004 general elections. It lost only one seat to the BJP while the INLD, led by former chief minister Om Parkash Chautala, was wiped out despite being in power in the state at that time. The Congress carried on with its victorious march in the 2005 assembly elections by winning 67 of the 90 seats. The BJP and INLD had, however, failed to enter into an alliance in the previous elections; now they have a pre-poll alliance. The two parties are contesting five seats each and are hoping to wrest some of the seats they had lost in 2004.
Hooda, who hopes to retain power in the assembly polls by beating the anti-incumbency factor, has left no stone unturned to project his ?achievements?. His government has launched a multimedia campaign to spread its message. It invested heavily in refurbishing its publicity wing.
However, after the model code of conduct kicked in, its publicity has got limited to election rallies. Among the achievements he and his party are projecting is a better deal for farmers, special incentives for the girl child, improved electricity supply, more facilities for education and a healthy economy. ?What we have done in the past four years for the state is equivalent to whatever development had taken place in the past 40 years??, is the claim of the chief minister and his team.
The BJP and INLD combine, along with candidates of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Haryana Janhit Party (HJC), which was formed by former chief minister Bhajan Lal?s son Kuldeep Bishnoi, are highlighting the ?failures? of the government. These include the deteriorating law and order situation, resentment among a section of farmers whose lands have been acquired, corruption and police high-handedness.
Due to the proximity of the assembly elections in the state, the issues in the LS elections have become localised. Neither the ruling Congress nor the opposition are talking about national issues.
Though the Congress is better placed in the state than the opposition parties, it is suffering due to continued dissidence from some party leaders. The state finance minister Birender Singh had publicly sought to contest the Lok Sabha elections. He was denied the party ticket and had spoken openly against the chief minister. He was subsequently called by the UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and told to bury the hachet. But he has not been campaigning actively.
There was much bad blood in the party over the ticket for the Bhiwani-Mahendergarh constituency. The chief minister was opposed to the grant of ticket to Shruti, daughter of tourism minister Kiran Chaudhary. However, she had her way. A banner of revolt was also raised by urban development and technical education minister A C Chaudhary over allocation of ticket to the Faridabad candidate Avtar Singh Badhana.
The INLD and BJP have shared power in the past and the outcome of their getting together, after parting ways in the previous two elections and suffering the consequences, will be interesting to watch.